


Tin Pan Alley Cats

by BoxWineConfessions



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Sex, Domesticated Lance, Established Shiro/Lance, Feral Keith, M/M, Rimming, Slow burn Klance, Slow burn Shklance, cat boy au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-11 16:55:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7900558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxWineConfessions/pseuds/BoxWineConfessions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite the fact that human/shifter relationships are frowned upon, he wouldn't trade what he has with Lance for the world. He's warmth and sunshine framed by two fluffy ears that are just begging to be rubbed. Shiro wouldn't change what they have for the world. </p><p>Until the afternoon that he finds a dirty feral cat out in the alley, and their lives change forever.</p><p>Formerly titled "Crazy Cat Man"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Stray

**Author's Note:**

> So this weekend was kind for me. Not only was I able to pound out the last of "Under his Care," I was able to start on this AU that I've been thinking of. Unfortunately updates will be sporadic as I am back to working full time again.

Shiro rubs his nose aimlessly for a moment and stares at the pile of neatly stacked and paper clipped papers on the table before him. Just because it was technically summer vacation didn’t mean that he actually got any kind of vacation what so ever. The tenure clock doesn’t stop, and as the new editor of _Advances in Space Research_ he was technically supposed to have revise and resubmit letters out by….He taps his phone and looks at the date. Yesterday…Which explained why he had so many angry emails in his mailbox this morning.

Shiro sighs and takes a sip of the coffee that Lance had brought him just a few minutes ago. Way, way too much sugar. Just the way he doesn’t like it. Shiro knits his brow and sighs over the steam. It’s the thought that really counts.

With his other arm he reaches downward between the space where the chair and the table met. His favorite orange tabby approaches and rubs up against his hand a few times before flopping over down by his feet.

There was a reason he liked to work outside until the noon-day sun became too unbearable in the summer, and it wasn’t because of the view of the alley, his neighbors’ trash receptacles, or his neighbor’s unattended sprinkler overwatering everything it touched.

He was slightly ashamed to admit that he did have an affinity for the alley cats that roamed freely. So much so that he left them food year round, and in the winter put out a small insulated crate with a heating lamp so they could stay warm.

“Tabitha, why don’t you handle all of my desk rejects for the day? Hm?” He asks the cat who appears to be seconds away from falling asleep.

Of course he gets no answer.

From behind him he can hear the backdoor slam. Tabitha darts, and in an instant he comes to terms with the fact that he’s going to have to deal with these journal submissions himself.

Lance approaches him and wraps his arms around him from behind. “Going to campus for a bit,” he breathes into Shiro’s ear.

Lance smells like detergent and shampoo, but far better than either of those things smell on their own. He wants to pull him into his lap and say “fuck campus,” and “fuck these manuscripts.”

“I thought your summer class met on Tuesdays and Thursdays?” Shiro feels like he’s forgotten something…Forgotten something important about Lance which he tries to avoid at all costs.

“My tutor,” Lance responds. “I’m seeing my tutor. You know, the one you’re paying out the nose for.”

“Ohh,” Shiro says in response. “Right. For finite mathematics?”

“Yes, for math the one subject you could probably help me out in a lot.”

Shiro doesn’t say anything directly in response. Lance needed to get out of the house, and maintain some sense of normalcy. His tutor needed clients. “Do you need money for that?”

“Shiro you are really killing me here with the old man bit.” Lance responds, then tilts his head upward so he can steal a quick peck on the mouth from Shiro. “You already paid her in full.”

“I think this is the absent minded professor bit,” Shiro replies. Lance looks so good today it’s criminal.  He’s wearing one of those loose fitting, light colored v necks that accentuate his skin and his muscles so well. His hat stays in his hand crumpled, so that his ears are exposed, stick straight upward vying to collect the sun’s warm rays.

“Jeez, spring session only ended a few weeks ago. Keep it together.”

“Yeah,” Shiro gets up from the table. “I’ll do my best.” The thick metal table grates against the concrete patio and makes a truly awful noise. Shiro rubs one furry chocolate colored ear and then the other. In no time flat he’s got Lance purring. 

“Shiro, you can’t just do that before I have to be somewhere,” Lance all but moans into his shoulder as he continues his firm but gentle touches.

He kisses Lance squarely on the mouth this time. Nothing particularly hard or heavy, but firmer than the pecks Lance had given him earlier.  “I’ll be here when you get back,” Shiro says as he breaks the contact between them. He’s the one who wants a distraction right now. Not Lance.

“You’re so unfair,” he whines. “I’m going to be thinking about you rubbing my ears all day.”

* * *

After several hours’ worth of work, Shiro was about ten minutes away from vacating the patio for his air conditioned home office. He’d worked through all of his desk reject letters, and was about halfway through submitting anonymized documents out for peer review. But, the noonday sun was absolutely unbearable and required a change of scenery.

Until he heard the high pitched wailing from further down the alley. Then, several of the feral cats race down the alley in the opposite direction of the sound. This requires investigation.

Quickly, he strides across the yard and down the alley. The wailing continues.

He freezes in a combination of shock and terror when he reaches the corner of the alley and finds the source of the agonized screeching. There in front of him, writhing around in the garbage and the gravel of the alley way is something that’s not quite human and not quite alley cat.

There’s arms, a naked human chest, and a face blanketed completely by dark brown black hair. Then there’s two hind legs and a tail blanketed by thick fur that matches the hair on his head. Wailing and writhing and wailing some more.

Shiro, who likes to consider himself a more well-read man when it comes to shifters and shifter health (personal interests) has absolutely no idea on what to do.

So he settles on resting in a crouched position at a safe distance and begging, “Hey, buddy…Why don’t you finish shifting and then I can help you.” Which he realizes is kind of stupid, because the cat can’t shift all the way, and that’s probably why he’s in so much pain.

As if to reiterate the point, the cat writhes so that his face is no longer covered with hair and deep brown black eyes bore into him like hot coals set on snow they sink downward deeper and deeper til they hit his very core.

He hisses at Shiro in response.

“Okay, so you’re stuck.” Shiro says more to himself than the poor cat. He honestly doesn’t know what to do in this situation. He’s been with Lance for almost three years now and he’s never even seen the guy fully shifted. He doesn’t know if this is a regular occurrence for shifters, or if this is just something completely off.

Suddenly, the shifter launches at him. Despite his size, he’s surprisingly strong. He’s got his full weight on Shiro. One arm pinned, and the oversized feline portion of his body is dead weight on his lower body. He’s still hissing and mewling and carrying on.

Shiro has read about this type of thing happening. When shifters face trauma, or lose contact with civilization for too long they can go feral. No difference between them and ordinary, un-enchanted animals. It’s been a point of social and political contention for years now.

He never thought he’d be a witness to it. Never mind be pinned down by it.

“Hey,” he rolls the creature off of him. “Why don’t you focus.”

The creature manages to catch his arm and sink it’s claws deep into the skin.

He shakes the cat off of him as calmly as possible.

“Calm down,” He knows this guy has to understand him somewhere in the currently hidden part of his human mind. “And shift completely. I don’t care which way you go.” Although he wouldn’t mind it if he went back into human form. He wants to know exactly how this guy ended up feral, half shifted out in his alley.

The shifter locks eyes with him seemingly holding on to ever word.

“I know you can do it,” and if he can’t they’re going to have problems. He’s acutely aware that he’s scratched and bleeding right now, and doesn’t want to repeat the process.

“Come on, try for me,” and against his better judgement he reaches out to pet the shifter. Part of him expects to pull back with less skin and more bleeding, but to his surprise the shifter lets him. He pets down the smooth exposed skin part of his side to the fur covered part of his thigh over and over again until he’s purring. “Are you gonna try for me?”

The shifter flops onto his back in response, kicks up into the air a couple of times, and reverts fully into his human form. Then, he promptly passes out.

Once again Shiro is at a loss for words.

There’s a fully grown naked man in the alley. He can’t just leave him here, but he’s certainly not comfortable with carrying a naked and unconscious man into his home in broad daylight.

The neighbors already talked enough about him and Lance as it was.

Shiro grabs the man, shifts him about in his arm until he has him in a bridal carry, and darts back towards his own yard.

* * *

Shiro has always had a hard time understanding couples who say they’re going to be “in trouble,” with their partner. How can an adult be “in trouble,” when they’re free to make they’re own decisions dependently of their partner? How could a partner be so inconsiderate that their partner is upset by the decisions made?

Sure, he understands that it’s super naive, but he’s always had an issue with that particular phrasing.

Until now.

Until he decided that bringing a feral cat shifter into his home…the home that he shared with his cat shifter boyfriend…And that feral cat shifter was currently in human form, naked and shredding up his couch with cat claws…was an acceptable course of behavior.

It’s safe to assume that Lance won’t be pleased with this. He’s not entirely pleased with this.

* * *

“Shiroo,” Lance says in an almost melodic tone as he walks though the door. “I know I’m later than usual but I picked us up some take out so you don’t-“ he pauses.

He knows what’s going on. Or at least he can smell what’s going on.

“Shiro?” He calls still from the other room. “Why does it smell like cat in here? Specifically, one that isn’t me?”

“Um, because something kind of interesting happened today while you were gone,” he says as Lance walks into the room. His eyes go wide.

* * *

Surprisingly, Lance is very diplomatic about the whole situation. Shiro didn’t expect outright jealousy or for him to be territorial However, he did expect more questioning of the matter at hand.

“So you just got him to shift for you?” he says as he dabs the sleeping man’s head with a damp cloth. “You must be magic Shiro.”

“I don’t think so,” he runs a finger across the bandages on his arm. If getting cut almost to ribbons was magic then he really wanted no part of it.

“He’s cute enough, but I’m bored with just staring at him while he sleeps,” Lance decides after awhile. “Let’s eat. I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”

“Do you think it’s okay to just leave him?” He’s been at his side since that afternoon.

“I think we’ll hear if he gets up.”

They retreat toward the dining room. Shiro sets the table while Lance unpacks the food. For a moment it’s very easy to forget there’s a stranger passed out in the next room.

“What did you and Pidge cover today?” he asks when they finally settle in.

“We started on matrices.” Lance frowns at his plate of General Tso. “I really don’t even understand why everyone has to take that class. I’m never going to use that kind of math in the field. Not to mention they’re going to be the absolute death of me. Well, the whole class is I guess.”

Shiro chews thoughtfully for a moment before speaking. The course was a sensitive issue with Lance. He’d had to drop it after the first exam in the spring. “I had a certain distain for general electives too. I had to take a few humanities courses. English, gender studies…It seemed like they could’ve all said the same things in much simpler language. My professors didn’t seem to agree.”

“Did you get any work done before all that,” Lance waves towards the living room. “Happened?”

“A little,” Shiro sighs. “I have a feeling we are not going to make our deadline, and it’s going to be all my fault.”

“Does it matter?” Lance asks in between bites. “If you egg heads get the latest in science on the 24th or on the 25th?”

“It’s the principle of the matter,” he says. “I should’ve accounted for my deadlines earlier in the month.”

It goes silent between them for a moment. Typically Lance would be more than happy to fill in the gaps with little stories or instances of what happened during the day and Shiro would gladly listen. It’s a small part of what makes Lance so attractive. He could talk about watching paint dry and make it seem like the most exciting experience ever, like Shiro was lucky even to hear the tale.

But something…or someone hangs thick in the room between them.

“What are you gonna do with him when he wakes up?”

“I haven’t thought of anything concrete,” Shiro admits. “I’m very open to suggestion.”

“I think you should let him stay. Maybe just for the night, but he doesn’t need to be alone right now….And clearly he doesn’t have anyone.”

“Is this…typical?”

Lance furrows his brow. “I’ve heard of it,” he says finally and puts his fork down. “Honestly, I thought it was just superstition. People shift, disappear, and start a new life somewhere else. Or, people shift and stay shifted but the animal is never dominant. Nothing like this before.”

As if on cue, there’s the sound of glass breaking from the living room. If it’s his reading lamp by the armchair, he’s going to be pissed. Deep down he knows it’s the lamp. The only thing he can think of in the living room that’s made of glass is his lamp.

Lance is already up and in the other room while he’s still rubbing his temples between his thumb and forefinger. This was a bad idea. He should’ve just called a shelter and waited with the man until they showed up.

“You are going to be so embarrassed by all of this when you finally come too. Seriously dude you need some clothes.”

By the time he makes it into the living room, he’s greeted with more of what he experienced earlier. Hissing, clawing (the carpet this time), and more shaking. All of this directed at Lance, whose doing little more than trying to coax him into one of Shiro’s old oversized t-shirts.

“Oh come on. This is one of my faves. I stole it from Shiro fair and square and now I’m trying to pay it forward with your sorry ass.”

But the stray is having none of it and is trying to hiss and bite at Lance.

“Damnit you ungrateful bastard.” Lance says as he retracts his hand quickly.

“Stop it,” Shiro says in a loud stern voice. Earlier he’d gotten the cat lulled into some kind of tense truce earlier. Maybe he could do it again.

The strange cat turns his head sharply, makes eye contact with Shiro, and stops actively trying to claw at Lance. His claws are still embedded into his skin, but he’s stopped thrashing about.

“We can help you,” Shiro continues not totally sure what he can understand and what he can’t, “But only if you’re respectful to Lance.” He didn’t have the patience for anyone that wasn’t.

Lance pulls back from the stray and ducks behind Shiro. “What a fucking weirdo.” He says.

Shiro bends down and finishes putting the shirt on the stray. He’s far from pliant. He kicks and thrashes a bit, but it’s more playful than anything. “Pants?”

Lance hands him a pair of his pajama pants. “I still stand by my original statement though Shiro.”

Shiro tries not to let his eyes linger too long on the stray’s exposed flesh or the cute little place where fur meets skin at his tail. He’s not cognizant right now, and the last thing he needs is a pair of hungry eyes on him.

“At least give him a day or two.” Lance’s tail won’t quit twitching from side to side. He’s nervous.

“I will Lance,” He replies softly.

The other cat is clothed and he seems far more relaxed now. His eyes have widened, no longer constricted slits.

“Wonder what his name is?” Shiro asks as he watches the stray swat aimlessly at nothing in particular.

“Maybe he’ll tell us when he’s comfortable. For now we’ll have to settle for the usual unwanted alley cat names. Asshole. Dumbass. Stinky.”

Shiro goes for the dustpan in the kitchen. His lamp is in fact ruined. It was an antique, survived several moves, and his favorite…But that seemed very unimportant to the stray.

Lance follows and gets another plate of food. “He should probably try to eat something.” For a moment Shiro wants to try to convince him to give him something a bit less messy than takeout. Crackers or a sandwich or something…But there’s no real harm in it. What’s another stain in the carpet to be hidden under an innocuous end table?

He moves back over to Lance and gives him a quick kiss on the temple. “Do you want to work on some practice problems before bed?”

“God yes. I think she melted down my brain and sold it for scraps…But we have a quiz tomorrow.”

“Okay, it has to be while I finish going through these submissions.”

Lance looks away sheepishly and smiles. Like he’s far too used to having their time together split down the middle by work.

* * *

Shiro looks up from his work and to the living room clock. “12:30,” he announces. “Time for bed.”

Lance stifles a yawn and puts down his math book. “I think I might actually know what I’m doing now.”

“Good,” Shiro replies. “At least one of us does.” He looks to the disorganized pile of manuscripts. He’s made a dent, but yeah this volume is going to be late. “Right?” He looks to the stray who has taken up residence in his armchair.

The stray meows in response.

Lance untangles his legs from Shiro’s and shoves his books in his bag. “You can get ready for bed Shiro.” He says. “I’ll show him the guest room. “

“You think that will be okay?”

“You gave him a talking too. I think it will be fine.”

* * *

Lance leads him down the hallway by the hand. He’s very warm and very very soft for an alley cat. “Shiro says you can stay the night. So this is your room.” He turns the blankets down on the bed. “Please don’t wake us up with any of your idiot wailing.”

The stray simply stares back in response.

“Well, come on.” He pats the mattress and in one agile motion the stray has hopped onto the bed. “Okay, good night then.”

* * *

Lance doesn’t care that it’s late, or that Shiro’s visibly tired, or that they both have a considerable amount of work to do tomorrow. Seeing that stray has jarred something loose within him, and he needs Shiro to put it back into place.

So when Shiro says, “Lance we can’t he’s right next door,” he doesn’t listen. Shiro’s going to need a better excuse.  Especially since he’s kissing and licking and sucking right back.

“But Shiro, I need you.” That’ll get him. Stuff like that always gets him…Not to mention tonight of all nights it’s so painfully true. He sucks a deep red mark onto Shiro’s chest just to emphasize the point. “Please.”

Shiro moans when the word falls off of his lips. “I can’t say no to you Lance.” He reaches over and grabs Lance’s cock by the root and gives it a few hard thrusts with his hand.

“No,” Lance interrupts. “I don’t want just that.”

In an instant Lance is pushing Shiro back down to the mattress and scrambling to straddle his thighs.

“Lube. Now,” he orders. Never mind the fact that he’s grinding his ass down onto Shiro’s length and there’s no way in hell he’s going to be able to hold a coherent thought in his head while that’s going on.

Shiro doesn’t even give warning before he pushes his first finger in. Shiro is rarely this direct. He’s the tease you for forever kind of guy. He’s either being _very_ giving tonight, or he’s banking on Lance still being worked open from last night (and he totally is), or Shiro needs this just as much as he does.

He’s hoping it’s more of the latter than anything else.

Then, after only a few thrusts, Shiro’s inserted the second. “Oh god Shiro that’s so good. I can’t wait. I can’t fucking wait to have you-“ he’s not even listening to himself at this point. Doesn’t even care if he makes sense.

It’s taken ages to develop this type of rhythm with Shiro. Where they can read each other and understand exactly what the other person wants. He’s not letting go of it for anything in the world.

“You don’t have to wait Lance,” Shiro says as he removes his fingers and lines up his cock for Lance to sink onto. Shiro rubs at his hips in soft circles. The sensation of metal against his skin gives him goosebumps. His other hand is petting him at the base of his tail. A move that never fails to make him tighten around Shiro and beg for it. “That feel good baby?” Shiro says while giving him slow experimental thrusts while he waits for him to catch his breath and start riding him properly.

“So damn good Shiro. I love you Shiro. I love you,” and he really needs to try and shut up now because if he doesn’t he’s going to start sobbing big sentimental tears of joy and gratitude. And there’s nothing that kills Shiro’s boner faster than crying…Not that he’s ever gotten over emotional while having sex before.

* * *

He doesn’t remember how he got here, or where he came from. He doesn’t even remember his own  name or how to form a coherent sentence.

But he knows for a goddamn fact that one of their names is Shiro and the other one’s name is Lance. That much is abundantly clear.

Because they’re in the next room screwing each other’s brains out a bit too loudly.

“Shiro,”

“Lance,”

Followed by mutual gasps and the obscenely sticky sound of skin slapping against skin.

He wonders if the other cat…The lanky one…If that’s Shiro or if that’s Lance. They probably told him, but he can’t quite remember….He wonders if he likes it. If he actually wants it. On the off chance he actually does, why? Who would really want to be some human’s pet?

“Shiro, Shiro, Shiro. God I’m going to come. I’m going to come on your chest Shiro. Fuck.”

It’s disgusting. He thinks as he reaches his hand underneath the pajama pants. His first coherent thought in god only knows how long is to jerk off to the sound of two strangers fucking in the next room. He’s disgusting.


	2. The Domestic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title change because I'm fickle. Thanks for reading ya'll. I can't believe the positive responses i've gotten already.

Lance’s class ends at 11:30 which means he has just enough time to stop by the coffee shop and harass the new employee until she gives him a discounted latte before he heads home.  Normally, he’d stay at the library for a few more hours and study or do research so Shiro could have the house to himself for a few more hours.

Neither of them had a great track record for getting much of anything done if they were both there together on work days.

But today he’s gotta make sure he’s back by 12:30 so Shiro can make his staff meeting at 1:00 and not run the risk of having the place destroyed or robbed blind by their houseguest.

He’s on his way out of the lecture hall when he feels a large heavy hand clamp down on his back.   
“How’d the quiz go for you man?”

He turns around to see Hunk. Usually booming and smiling, his typical expression has been replaced with one of anxiety.

“I don’t know I think I did okay,” Lance responds. “Why are you worried? You always get 90s and 95s. Seriously. Hunk probably should be in the honors lecture or something. He’s that good.

“I didn’t really,” He pushes his index fingers together nervously a few times. “Study that much. I might have made cream puffs with Shay instead.”

Lance rolls his eyes. It means he studied for at least two hours instead of his usual four, which was pretty good for a quiz only worth 2% of your overall grade.

Despite Hunk’s ability to make numbers seem easy when in reality they’re anything but, he likes Hunk. Hunk is like him, a nontraditional student. He doesn’t know how old he is exactly, but it’s nice to know he’s not the only guy in his mid-twenties in a 1000 level introduction class full of kids fresh from high school. 

And although he’s yet to be able to confirm it, there’s something _off_ about Hunk. He doesn’t smell like any kind of shifter that he’s met before, but there’s certainly something going on there. Something that makes him extraordinary. Something that makes him more than human.

But Hunk doesn’t ask him to take off the sock hat, so he doesn’t press him in other matters.

“Wanna go get some coffee?” He asks changing the subject.

“Nah, dude I have to go home.” He almost tells Hunk. Seriously, he’s nanosecond from launching into “You would not believe what happened last night,” but he stops. Until they knew where the stray came from and why he was so fucked up, the fewer people that knew the better. “I have to let the maintenance guy in. They won’t come look at the air conditioner if we’re not there.”

Hunk opens his mouth as if to speak, but then closes again. He was going to say he’s a terrible liar. Lance knows this because people have told him this before. “Alright. Thursday maybe?”

“Sure thing my dude.”

* * *

Lance stares for a moment at the door. It’s really fascinating when you stop and take a look at it. There’s the knob which is clearly super old and made out of sculpted brass. Then there’s like this skeleton key hole that’s been like painted over fifty times above and then the actual deadbolt lock…It’s fascinating.

Or, for the first time in well, the first time ever really…He kind of dreads coming home.

And it’s so not lost on him that he brought it on himself. That Shiro wouldn’t let the guy stay if he didn’t want him there.

That’s the thing. He wants the guy there because he doesn’t want him to get hurt. At the same time, his presence alone brings back less than pleasant memories of things that he tried so very hard to forget.

Finally, he holds his breath and unlocks the door.

It’s quiet when he crosses the threshold. Almost too quiet, so he goes for the back yard.

Instantly he recognizes Shiro’s frame resting out on the patio furniture. He’s alone.

“Miss me?” Lance asks as he all but skips out the back door and into the yard. He makes sure to give Shiro one of his patented sultry smirks. He likes those.

“Of course,” Shiro responds.

“Where’s our mulleted houseguest?”  

“He does need a haircut,” Shiro hums in response, his eyes still haven’t left the screen of his laptop. Looks like he’s finishing up an email. “He was up for a while…Mostly ignored me. He did play with some of your yarn and then went back to sleep,” Shiro say as he closes his laptop and starts to shove books into his satchel.

“My yarn!” Lance all but screeches. “That is not for kitty cats to play with Shiro that is hand dyed Himalayan yarn. You know for knitting.”

Shiro nods absentmindedly like he knows he’s messed up, but can’t bring himself to care about this particular injustice. “I didn’t just offer it to him Lance. He got into the bag himself.”

Lance shoves his hands into his pockets abruptly and hunches over. Who does this guy think he is? Playing with his yarn in his house…

“Hey,” Shiro grabs him by the hand and pulls him forward a half step and gives him a kiss. “Don’t pout. I’ll make it up to you later.”

“You didn’t do anything. He did,” Lance clearly pouts. “And I’m not pouting.”

“Uh-huh.” Shiro cocks his head to the side for a moment. It’s the kind of face he makes whenever he’s taking a moment before he says something really profound. “You should go in there and talk to him.”

For once, Lance has nothing to say in response to his partner. What’s he going to say to the guy, “Thank you for behaving in stereotypical ways. Want to learn how to knit instead?” Yeah, for some reason he doesn’t think that’s going to work.

“He opened his mouth a few times today…like he wanted to try to say something.”

“Maybe he was yawning Shiro,” Lance fires back.

“This wasn’t a yawn Lance. Trust me.”

Shiro takes a few steps towards the gate. “I’ll see you later okay?”

* * *

 

Meat. Check. Chedda. Check. Provelone. Check. Fixins? Lance mashes a few potato chips, a pickle spear, and a half an avocado onto the sandwich with the top bun.

Check.

He pours himself a tall glass of milk, and at that his favorite part of the day has officially begun. The few scant hours right after class where he doesn’t have to worry about passing math are the best. He can focus on what really matters.

Trashy day time TV.

Lance turns around so he can make a beeline for the couch and almost trips over the stray. He shrieks and is _this_ close to dropping his food in shock.  “The hell is wrong with you?”

“Meow,” the stray says curtly in response. His eyebrows are furrowed tightly as if Lance is somehow at fault.

He sniffs gingerly at the glass of milk in Lance’s hand. “Oh my god fine. Here.” He thrusts the glass into his hand and pours himself another. “Come on stinky,” he waves his hand at the man before him. “Come watch TV with me.”

The guy really does stink. Like garbage and sweat and something that’s kind of dead. If he were a more rigorous man he’d push him into the shower and hold the glass door shut until the screeching died down. Instead he resigns himself to sitting next to the man who may or may not be emitting a small trail of dirt behind him wherever he goes.

A few bites into his sandwich, Lance can feel his eyes on him again wide and intent. The animalistic behavior is unnerving, and for a moment he understands why people might have shitty attitudes towards shifters in general. This was behavior that went beyond culture shock and cut much much deeper.

“Ugh, fine,” he takes another large bite from his sandwich and hands the other half to the stray. “You should’ve asked though.”

After accepting the sandwich,  the stray cat swats at his drink so that it spills all over the coffee table.

* * *

 

The human side, whatever small percentage that is, tells him that this wouldn’t be an awful place to stay. They’d keep him warm and dry and fed until they grew tired of him and kicked his ass to the curb. The human side says that wouldn’t be so bad despite the fact that the other cat was annoying in ways that he couldn’t quite discern. The tall one was suspiciously nice, and he can’t tell if it’s genuine or fake so it makes his skin crawl.

The animal part of his brain, the part that was clearly in charge here, tells him to dart. Why on Earth would anyone take in a nasty feral shifter like himself. There was something fishy going on here, and he needed to leave as quickly as possible.

His mind immediately wandered to the worst. Sex trafficking, enslavement, and all the awful things that happened to shifters because they were “exotic,” and most humans turned a blind eye to.

This Shiro guy had a _thing_ for shifters and plucked himself a kitten out of a shelter. This Lance guy didn’t know any better. Didn’t know how good it felt to be free even if freedom meant waking up flea bitten and hungry more often than not.

Even if he had known some sense of freedom, it’s hard out here for someone who’s more animal than human. No job prospects, shitty education. This guy clearly had a stable income, and that had to be attractive. So Lance was free to go whenever…Except he’d lose the food, the roof over his head, and the clean clothes. That had to be what was going on here because no self-respecting animal would willingly lie with a human…right?

Then again, the place seems relatively easy to get out of. Even in a pinch. They left the door to his room open last night, and he’s pretty sure the back door hasn’t been locked at all since he woke up here.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sticking around for a few more meals.

That’s something that both he and the animal can agree upon.

“You fucking asshole,” the other cat yells with a start. “That’s going to stain if it’s not cleaned properly,” then he goes to retrieve some cleaning supplies.

“Seriously what the fuck is your problem?” His problem? Um, the other cat who insists on taking care of him like he’s a helpless kit or something.

“Hey stinky,” the other cat hands him a wad of paper towels. “You have hands now. Help me.”

He doesn’t want to. So he takes to batting the wad of paper towels lamely around on the carpet.

“Earth to dumbass.” The other cat, Lance? He’s fairly certain the other one was talking an awful lot about a Lance. So, this must be him. “Help me. I don’t believe for a minute that you were like born feral.” 

A dark brown hand is wrapped around his wrists and moves his hand over to the spill forcing him to sop it up with the paper towels.

After the mess is cleaned, Lance returns to the couch with a huff. “You fucking wear me out mullet cat.”

Before he can even censor himself his fingernails morph painfully into claws, and he’s almost certain he can feel his eyes dilate into slits. The next thing he knows he’s hissing at the other cat again. He can handle dumbass, or other names that don’t hold much meaning, but there’s something about _mullet cat_ that makes him want to sink his teeth into the back of this housecat’s neck and make him submit.

Then, another part of his mind, he can’t tell if it’s human or animal tells him that he doesn’t know what his actual name is.

He stops hissing, and where he tried so hard to make words come out before when he was with Shiro that morning, the tumble out naturally now. “It’s Keith,” and he makes sure to punctuate the sentence with, “asshole.”

* * *

 

“I knew it!” Lance makes sure to get all up in the other cat…Keith’s face.

Keith only blinks a few times in response as if his entire capacity for human linguistics consisted only of his name, and “asshole.” Given his shitty and antagonistic personality, it seemed completely possible. “I knew you weren’t feral.”

Lance can see Keith’s lip begin to twitch in the beginning motions of a snarl or another hiss, which quite frankly is getting really old really fast.

“Hi Keith,” He pulls back and waves at the other cat. It’s probably really kind of lame.

Keith opens his mouth to speak again but a weak squeaking noise comes out in response.

Lance would never ever admit under any circumstance that it is in fact adorable.  “Gotta ease yourself back into it, huh buddy?”

The other man nods. It’s strange, how when the crazed feral look he has is finally shaken from his eyes that’s when he seems the most vulnerable.

“Well, watching trashy TV doesn’t require much talking,” but god does he ever want to pry. Where did he come from? What happened that was so awful that he ended up going feral. Has he seen a calico with bright green eyes and a significant chunk of her left ear missing during his travels? For that matter, what about a tortoise shell with gold eyes and a bobbed tail?

But he bites his tongue. Literally, until he can feel sharp prick of pain from his teeth pressing downward.

The silence between them isn’t comfortable. It’s not at all like when Shiro “watches” television with him with one arm wrapped around Lance’s middle and his nose buried in a book, or an article, or essays to grade. With Keith it’s tense and awkward and the sound of Keith’s flitting tail hitting the back of the couch and the empty cushion between them is deafening.

“Do you like being a house cat?” Lance jumps with a start again when he speaks despite having heard his voice moments ago.

The blood in Lance’s veins run cold like ice. Oh, so that’s how their first conversation was going to be. So much for love and kindness and paying it forward to your own kind. “I’m not sure I understand,” he says trying to get clarification.

Keith clears his throat and mouths a few soundless syllables before his shaky human voice catches up to him. “Do you like being his pet?”

Lance considers himself an easy going guy all things considered. He’d like to think it takes a lot for him to get riled up. In realty, he’s firmly accepted that there are only two things in this world that are really worth getting upset over. His family, and Shiro. He only had one of those things right now, so really the only thing worth getting upset over was Shiro. He’d defend him to the ends of the universe. Shiro could kill a man in cold blood and Lance would still defend his honor because Shiro was just that good.

Not to mention he was so sick of people making assumptions about them. He was dead tired of people thinking they could just read the situation in an instant.

Everyone thought that Shiro, moderately successful assistant professor had bought himself a toy with his first big paycheck. All they see is the big house, with the big yard, and the nice clothes. No one knew about when they first met and Shiro was a post doc and barely had a cent to his name because student loans are a bitch. No one knew about all the times Lance worked doubles at the coffee shop so they could have a little extra to go on a date. No one could tell just by looking at them that Shiro didn’t see him as a status symbol, but truly as his partner.

Lance takes a few deep breaths. Let his claws come out and pierce the thick fabric of his jeans and sink into his skin. He lets the pain bring him back down to reality, because he’s seconds away from undoing all the patience and goodwill he wanted to express to this poor helpless bastard.

Another inhale, another exhale. The more he thinks about it, the more it’s really an innocuous question. One of his own kind is asking if he’s in danger, if he needs help. As much as it makes his stomach churn, he _has_ to let it go because he’d probably ask another shifter the exact same thing.

“I’m,” Lance’s voice cracks, “Not a house pet.” He takes another moment to choose his words carefully. “I don’t know how to explain it to you. Shiro loves me…as a person.” And he wants to add, “and I love him,” but he doesn’t think his voice, or his demeanor will hold, so he doesn’t. He turns back to the television and desperately tries to care about the paternity test results that are about to be revealed on screen.

 After Lance has taken the time to relax once more and he’s forgotten that Keith has made his blood pressure rise exponentially, he speaks again. “You don’t work?”

With an exasperated sigh Lance gets up from the couch. He could explain himself until he was blue in the face, or Keith could just accept his response at face value. “I liked you a lot better when you were quiet.”

* * *

Keith had initially decided that he could stay a few more days and get a few more meals. That was an inaccurate assumption. Although they didn’t seem mean him any harm, something didn’t quite sit right. This pair was odd.

From the way Lance walked up to Shiro while he was cooking dinner and draped his long lanky frame against the larger man, to the way that Shiro made direct eye contact and said, “Lance tells me your condition is improving.” Which is a really fucked up way to say, “You spoke.”

But he manages to croak out a, “Yes,” in response.

Keith throws the covers back of the bed. It’s not his best idea. He should at least wait until he can convince one of them to buy him a pair of shoes…But it’s not his worst. The animal inside says he’s in danger, says he needs to get out of there.

So he does. The clock in the kitchen reads 1:45, and he’s pretty sure that both of them went to bed hours ago. It’s hard to tell. They were actually quiet tonight.

He goes to the door where the pair keep their shoes and shoves on a pair of flip flops. Then, he darts across the dining room to the back door. That’s the door that’s always open, and it’s probably the door that is least likely to wake them up since it’s furthest from the bedrooms.

He throws open the door and tumbles outside.

Only to be face to face with the master of the house, Shiro.

“Evening Keith,” he says in a voice that was far too soft for a man that was so imposing.

“Hey,” This is where it happens. Getting locked in his room or in a basement. He’s stupid for not waiting until they’re both out of the house at the same time.

“Lance is going to be really upset that you’re leaving,” he says calmly.

“I doubt that.”

“No really,” Shiro responds. “He will. He doesn’t like to see people in need. Especially people like himself.”

Keith swallows the lump that’s risen in his throat. Does he dart? Does he start swinging with claws out?

“Before you go, you can have this.” Shiro dangles a silver key on a looped string in front of his face.

“I’m not coming back.”

“Humor me.”

So Keith does. If it means that the man is actually going to let him go without a fight, then leaving a loose end is worth it. Without a word he grabs the key, and darts into the night.

 


	3. The Crazy Cat Man

“Do you want to talk about it?” Shiro asks the evening after Keith left them. After he put a new set of sheets in the spare bedroom, and Lance got over the fact that his sandals were gone, it was like he was never there at all. The only evidence that remained was the fact that he was very much still on Lance’s mind.

Tonight, like so many other nights, Shiro was  working after dinner on his latest manuscripts in the bedroom converted into an office.  Lance was anxiously alternating between working on his homework and doing push ups or stretches on the floor rug which covered up a decent part of the hard wood floor. He could feel Lance’s nervous energy for several days now, and he just wished so badly he’d open up.

“You know what I’m going to talk about,” Lance replies. He opens his mouth again to speak, but little more than a sigh coms out. He does this a lot when he’s afraid of starting to open up and being unable to stop. It’s a habit that Shiro had hoped would break after all of this time, but he doesn’t take it personally.

Shiro’s eyes roam over his roll top desk, the standing lamp next to it, and his bookshelf. It needs dusting in here before it becomes a health hazard. “Doesn’t matter. You’re clearly affected,” Shiro finally replies. He saves the document he’s working on and closes out of it so he can give Lance his full attention. “So talk to me.”

“I know this tactic.” Lance raises his eyebrow. “You have somethin’ on your mind too huh?”

As always, Lance was right. It was no secret that Shiro’s typical style was to let people come to him and talk when they were ready. He hadn’t told him that he took his own house key off the ring and shoved it into Keith’s hands. Yeah, he’s hoping it will crop up organically in the conversation so that he can come clean.

Lance scoots closer to the side of Shiro’s office chair. Immediately he laces his hands in Lance’s hair and teases at the base of his ears.

Lance takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “He’s got me thinking about mom, you know?”

“I figured as much.” When they first met, Lance wasn’t as dirty or feral as Keith, but he was definitely just as scared. The story goes that his mother had gotten mixed up with a human that was incredibly cruel. Wanted the calico for himself, and took the kittens to a shelter and took her miles away.  Lance bounced around from shelter to shelter, even lived with some other shifters for a while but nothing was ever stable.

“I can’t even remember what she looks like anymore.” His voice cracks. “In human form I mean.” He leans into Shiro’s touch. “And the thing is…I haven’t been looking like I used to.”

When they first met, Lance was never available on Sundays. It always pissed Shiro off because it was the one day he’d usually have free. Until he learned that Lance would take the bus into neighboring towns and try to find out information on the shifters there. After that he’d drive Lance where he needed to go. After even more time passed, Lance got his license and he could borrow the car whenever he had more time.

It was true that the trips had been fewer and fewer. He’d just assumed that Lance was using more online resources such as registries and social networking sites.

He could tell Lance his point of view. That even if he hadn’t been actively searching, he’d been busy with school. He’d say that he’s allowed to take care of himself. They’d had variants of this discussion before. He knew that Lance probably didn’t want to hear it, at least not right now.

He doesn’t understand, but he knows there is an immense pressure among shifters to help those that are in dire circumstances.

“My sister hasn’t been returning my calls either.”

“Had she told you any reason why?”

“No. I don’t know why she hasn’t.” He puts his head in his hands. “It’s really hard out here for a shifter without a human you know.”

Once again, he doesn’t, but he does know how hard it was to get Lance enrolled in school. It definitely contributed to a few of his premature grays. Lance’s ACTs were great. He had a decent entrance essay, because he’d worked on it every night until the admission deadline. There are no laws that required a certain quota of shifters in the human education system. Very few protections for them once they got there. Shiro was pretty sure that it was his position as junior faculty which finally sealed the deal despite Lance’s accomplishments.

“Would you like to go to her place and look for her this weekend?”

Lance has searched far and wide for his mother and his four siblings. He found Martha less than thirty minutes away out in the suburbs.

“Yes, but that’s not the point Shiro.”

Shiro feels his stomach do flip flops. He knows deep down inside that someday the societal pressure will be too much. Or Lance will find his family and he will leave. It won’t be personal. It will hurt both of them…But he’s fairly certain it will happen.

Shiro stops scratching his ears, and Lance looks up at him as if to say, “why did you stop.”

It’s selfish, and they’re supposed to be talking to make Lance feel better, but he needs this. He pulls Lance up into his lap.

“We’re going to break your office chair.”

“I don’t care.” The statement is absolutely 100% the truth. They’ve broken almost an entire set of dining chairs at this point due to the desire to simply be close.

Shiro’s hand immediately returns to his hair. Lance is rarely at a loss for words, but he’s been able to hone his skills over the years and be able to extract the exact information he wants via the ears.

Lance continues after a while. “The point is it’s a constant balance. I’m happy now. I want so badly to forget about all the stuff that happened before I met you…But I want to find them too. They shouldn’t have to keep suffering either.”

Shiro had assumed that having Keith around reminded him of himself. He knew it was tied to his family, but he didn’t know how deep it ran. He had no idea that this was something that had  been building for weeks possibly months. He doesn’t want that between them.

Shiro’s hands drift lower to his neck and his shoulders. Lance was carrying a lot of stress here and it showed with the knots in his muscles. Shiro knows everything that he shouldn’t say right now, but nothing that he absolutely knows that Lance wants or needs to hear. He settles for saying, “Give yourself some credit. I think if I’d come home and you had a naked feral man on the couch…I don’t know if I would’ve handled it as well as you did.”

He digs a thumb into his skin and savors the small moan he gets in response.

“Indirect actions count too. Helping a stranger, or even  what you want to do when you get out of college…” Lance has plans to become a social worker upon graduation. “Those things do make a difference.”

Lance makes a small unconvinced sigh. He follows it up immediately by confessing. “I gave him a key.”

“You’re optimistic,” Lance says right away. Lance gets up from Shiro’s lap and the chair pops with the shift in weight. Lance stands up and stretches his lanky arms above his head and then bends at the waist to stretch his back. Shiro has come to know it as a humanized version of a cat’s bowing position. “I think he thought if he stuck around here he’d end up collard and stuck.”

The statement hangs in between them thick and heavy.

“He all but asked me if you bought me.”

Shio raises his eyebrow in response. He didn’t expect another secret from Lance tonight. Then again these matters went well beyond what he could actually understand.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. I set him straight.” Lance tugs the sleeves of his hoodie downward.

“It clearly bothered you.” He knows this because the statement bothered him. Looks and unheard whispers were one thing. It’s easy to push them out of his mind and focus on other things instead. It’s another thing when it comes into your home and makes a direct accusation.

“Yeah,” Lance’s stretching act continues. He goes up gracefully on the balls of his feet, and the extension pulls his shirt up so that Shiro can see a small swath of his stomach. It’s lovely. “I’m not going to let anyone speak poorly of you Shiro. Especially if they don’t know you.”

“Does it upset you that I gave him a key?” Lance was fiercely protective to the point of detriment. If they’d gotten into an argument, if Lance didn’t want him around then that was it. He’d go out and change the locks tomorrow.

“No,” Lance says in half response and half in a yawn. “I’d wanted to help. I just can’t deal with people that think they can read the situation.”

* * *

The day after their conversation, Shiro drives out to the other end of town to see the private detective that has come highly recommended by one of the adjuncts in the department. Okay, so the other faculty member had hired him because she suspected her husband was cheating.

This guy came back with folders full of evidence.

It was something he should’ve done a long, long time ago, before they moved into the house, before he paid Lance’s tuition, before he bought the new car.

The referral did come with a warning. The guy was, “eccentric.”

Hell, he lived in a house full of antiques with his cat boyfriend and taught astronomy. That wasn’t exactly the definition of normative.

So after a good ten or fifteen minutes of bargaining with himself in the car, he decides to actually go inside. He opens the door into the office and is greeted to the entrance chime as well as a disembodied voice saying, “Afternoon, I’ll be with you in a bit.”

Shiro sinks into one of the chairs within the office space and waits. The room is sparsely decorated with little more than a few book shelves and lamps.  

“What can I do ya for today?” A man speaks into his ear and Shiro jumps and almost slaps the man with the back of his prosthetic hand. Where did he even come from? He was watching the entrance into the next room the whole time, and no one had come through.

“Uh,” he stammers. It’s hard to concentrate while his heart beat is returning to normal.

The man moves into his field of vision, and it becomes even more difficult to create and disseminate a coherent thought when only two words were dominating his thoughts. _That. Moustache._ It’s big bright and orange, and it burns his eyes like staring at the sun for too long.

“I’m interested in hiring you to find someone for me.”

“Kitty cat go missing?” The detective raises a sculpted vermilion brow.

“Um, kind of. How did you know?”

“Just a guess. My eyes have been watering since you walked in and I’m quite allergic to cats.”

“Oh,” Shiro says softly. Was that going to be a problem?

“Well tell me more about who you’re looking for. See what I can do and give you an estimate.”

“Sure,” Shiro relaxes just a fraction. This guy, despite being a little strange, was obviously good at what he did if he could discern the species of his companionship. “I’m looking for a calico shifter with part of her ear missing. Her name is Rosie. She had five kittens, although I guess they’re not kittens anymore.”

“Trying to find shifters is never easy,” he warns.

Shiro knows this. He remembers in vivid detail each and every migraine he got jumping through all of the hoops to get Lance a social security card. “I know, but this is important.”

“What I’m saying is you could spend a small fortune and I still might not be any closer to finding them a month from now than I am today.”

“I know that,” Shiro reiterates through clenched teeth. As if to emphasize his point, he opens the front compartment of his laptop case and pulls out his checkbook.

* * *

That evening, when he’s back from his faculty meetings and Lance is back from class, he debates telling him about hiring the detective. The bottom line is that Lance deserves to know. At the same time he wants Lance to himself, even if it’s just for a few hours. He wants to hold onto Lance so badly that he knows he’s being selfish. He also knows that lying by omission still counts as a lie.

 “Weather’s good today,” he notes when Lance shuffle out of his new pair of sandals by the shoe rack.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure my balls didn’t get funky until halfway through my walk to campus, as opposed to like immediately feeling the sweat happening as soon as I stepped outside.

“Charming as ever,” Shiro says while trying his best to maintain a straight face. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go for a run. You know before you swept me away with your eloquence.”

Lance flashed him a toothy grin in response. The kind of grin that said that he saw right through the sarcasm.  

“Yeah, lemme change.”

* * *

“Lance,” Shiro calls after his partner. “Make sure you do some stretches first.”  Shiro is holding the heel of his foot to the back of his thigh while balancing on one leg. He shifts from one leg to the other stretching out the muscles there.

Lane on the other hand has taken off in a slow jog down the street. Lance turns on his heel and doubles back. “You underestimate my flexibility Shiro,” Lance wiggles his eyebrows at his partner in way that Lance means to be suggestive.

“If you get a cramp I’m not rubbing it for you.” It’s a lie. He always has and always will.

“Yeah sure tough guy.” Lance takes off again. He’s abandoned the light jog he had before. Shiro watches him go for a few moments. He takes mental notes of his long strides. The grace in which the muscles of his calves move underneath his skin. He watches the curve of his hip, and tries his best to commit it all to memory before he too breaks into a long even stride.

“To the Union?” He asks when he finally catches up to Lance.

Lance grins. “Sounds good to me.”

They lived a little under a mile away from the edge of campus. It made it easy to walk to and from work each day. If they ran to the Union, which was on the eastern end of campus, it put their round trip at about three miles exactly.

Lance keeps his pace steady through the jog. His endurance, or maybe his patience was improving. Shiro’s used to him burning through all of his energy and then wearing out the last quarter mile. Today it seems endless, as Lance is always two or three strides ahead despite the fact that his own stride is longer.

Maybe he’s doing it on purpose so he can watch Lance in all of his splendor. Maybe he’s just let the insecurities build. He’s finally letting Lance pass him by.

His own brooding is lost on him when they finally reach the student Union. Lance immediately books it to the south entrance to where the creamery is.

It’s their own personal tradition to ruin a great run with a few scoops of ice cream.

Lance goes for butter pecan, while he opts for sorbet.

“That’s not even ice cream,” Lance chides as they sit on a low stone wall outside of the union.

“It’s not as heavy. Won’t make me feel awful on the way back.”

Lance narrows his eyes into a judgmental squint. “You’re really no fun sometimes. You know that?”

He neglects to remind Lance of the wonderful run they had last fall where Lance got sick on the way back because he insisted that he could beat him back to the house. “That’s what happens when you reach your thirties. It’s all down hill from there…At least so far. Maybe things pick back up when you hit thirty-four.”

Lance takes too large of a bite, and Shiro watches the micro drama unfold before him. Lance screws his eyes shut in pain, and his entire face is enveloped in a wrenched grimace. “Oh god,” he says finally when the brain freeze has passed. “I thought I was really done for.”

Shiro hands him a disposable cup full of water and hopes that it helps him work through the pain. “Good?”

“Slightly less close to death.” He leans against the rock wall. “Only slightly. Shiro, brain freeze is nothing to fool around with.” 

Shiro responds with a chuckle. "I'll add a clause about it in my living will."

* * *

 

He makes it clear from the moment they begin the run back to the house that he wants him. From the long lingering stare to the soft touches as he runs in tandem with him. The hip, the thigh, his teasing palm against the curve of his ass.

As they reach the end of their block, he touches the back of his neck and pulls him in for a deep and lingering kiss. Then he goes through all the things that he knows Lance loves the most. He rips the sock hat from his hairline and rubs his ears aggressively. He rubs the base of his tail through his pants. He makes sure to nip at his neck, but only gently so that it only shows a glimpse of what could come next.

So when he asks Lance point blank, “Take a shower with me.”

He’s naturally wound up enough to say, “Um, of course,” without hesitation.

Their kisses are hot and needy as they strip their clothes and climb into the lukewarm spray. In an instant he’s got Lance hard beneath him with minimal touching.

Which means it’s Lance’s turn to work his magic.

“Oh my god Shiro how can you even do this to me after just kissing.”

“Are you just going to fuck me? Because I’m pretty sure I could take it.” Shiro plays with Lance, takes his time to alternate between short and long strokes and then cup him against his hand.  Lance’s touches are great, but it’s his voice that shoots through him, right to his crotch.

“Seriously it’s just not fair. If I pulled this kind of shit you’d have me on my knees in no time.”

This statement gives Shiro inspiration. It’s one of Lance’s natural talents, to create something meaningful out of nothing at all.

Shiro drops to his knees and ignores the hot spray of the water. It takes no effort at all to have Lance backed up against the ugly green blue tiles of the shower. He makes sure to have his hand pressed between the tiles and Lance’s delicate chenille skin so that he isn’t shocked by the contrast between warm skin and cold tile.

“Are you going to suck me off?” Lance asks while Shiro is busy worrying beautiful red purple marks into his thighs.

“Is that what you want?” Shiro asks while he teases the tip of Lance’s cock. He grabs it by the base and sucks at it playfully.

“Yes,” Lance breathes heavily.

He has no idea how good he looks like this, with his hair fallen flat from the water and his ears flattened out to keep the spray away from his ears.

“No,” Lance continues when he lets his jaw relax and takes him in. “I still want to fuck,” he says through clenched teeth.

Shiro bobs against his length a few times before pulling away. “But you could come right now.”

“Not good enough Shiro,” Lance responds. “Like, you should know by now I can’t pass up the chance to have you fuck me. Like, ever.”

He takes the time to tease Lance a bit more by alternating between lapping at his top and lapping gently at his balls. When he’s decided that Lance has had enough. When he’s flushed and breathless…That’s when he knows he’s ready for more. Shiro taps at his hip a few times. “Turn around. I’ll get you ready.”

At that, Lance lets out a long deep moan that threatens to make him lose it right then and there. No one has ever wanted him like Lance has, and it goes without saying that he’s never wanted anyone like he’s wanted Lance.  It’s addictive to the point of being dangerous.

“Spread yourself for me,” Shiro adds, “Please.”

“Shiro, you don’t have to ask I mean-“ Lance’s hands are already on his own cheeks when his voice cracks. His tongue meets his entrance, and it absolutely drives Lance wild. “Oh my god Shiro seriously?”

He licks another long stripe across his partner’s hole. He’s quite serious about working his partner open with little more than his tongue and then moving onto his fingers.

“I love it when you do this,” Lance hisses. “Do you even know how good it feels? No, because I don’t do this for you enough.”

Shiro takes a note of it for later, but right now he really doesn’t care. This was all about Lance, letting him know through his actions that he was very very loved and that Shiro would do absolutely anything for him. For forever. So he works his tongue in deeper. He doesn’t just want to tease, he wants Lance to be ready to be lifted up and pressed into the shower, or thrown onto the bed still damp.

“I need fingers Shiro. Please?”

How could be say no? He works one finger in, but continues to lick around Lance’s rim. He pays special attention so that he can suck and bite against his skin wherever he can.

Finally, be pulls back and watches Lance twitch and shudder around him. He adds another finger and revels at the sight. “How do you want it?” He asks nonchalantly, as if he’s asking him what he’d like for dinner.

“You are such a tease Shiro. You give me shit all the time but,” his voice hitches a bit when he hits that spot deep within that he know will drive Lance crazy, make him come if he keeps touching it long enough.

 “Because I thought about taking the time to wrap you up in towels and take you on the bed.” He’s dead serious about talking through this with Lance. He’s not the only one in the relationship that can melt the other down into a concentrated pool of sin.

“That is not going to happen,” Lance decides. “I’m not getting out of here without you inside of me.”

Shiro rotates his fingers and crooks them just right. “If you put it that way…I think I can be persuaded.” Shiro continues rubbing until he has to hold Lance steady against the wall of the shower to keep his knees from buckling beneath him.

Shiro removes his fingers and Lance turns to help him up. Holds him steady for a moment while he waits for the feelings to return to his knees. “I’ve gotcha Shiro. Don’t worry.”  Lance rubs a few low circles into the small of his back.

“Ready?” Lance asks with a wide smile.

Shouldn’t he be asking Lance that?

It was initially Lance’s idea to keep lube in each room of the house. He’d initially scoffed. It was his idea to keep waterproof lube in the shower. It lets them have each other whenever they want wherever they want. How could he ever be against such a thing now?

He slicks himself up with a few firm strokes, then he positions Lance’s hands against the shower wall so that they’re both in the stream, and not kept out of its reach in the cold.

“Shiro do you have any idea how good this is?”

It’s rhetorical. It’s still hard to believe that he can make Lance feel half as good as Lance makes him feel even when he tries so hard to bring him to the edge over and over again.

Once he’s bottomed out, he takes a moment to admire the state he’s got Lance in. He focuses first on the large thin hands splayed out against the tiles. It is not lost on him, how his fingers constrict from human nails to claws and then back again. Then he focuses on the decrescendo of Lance’s breath from quick to even. With his hand he traces the dimples in his lower back, and for a moment he regrets not taking the time to lick them earlier. Finally, there’s the feeling of Lance tightening around him. It threatens to make him come right then and there. 

“You good?” He nuzzles Lance’s neck and talks into his skin. Then, he tilts his head back with his hand on his chin so he can mouth against his fur covered ears with his mouth. It’s awkward and not nearly as good as his bare skin, but it drives Lance crazy.

“So damn good Shiro.”

He takes it as a cue to move. He starts with shallow thrusts until he can adjust the angle and the position. Then, as soon as Lance start’s pushing back against him he goes faster.

When Lance stats talking….

“You’re such a bastard for making me wait.”

Well, that’s his cue to go even faster still.

“I’m so glad you made me wait.”

“It’s gonna be so good when I come.”

When he starts making contradictory statements, that’s his cue to thrust hard and deep and without abandon because Lance is on edge and could come with the slightest of touches.

“Could you come without me touching you?” It’s something that happens some of the time. Only when he’s very very worked up.

“If you keep talking, yeah,” he admits in a hot breathy tone.

Shiro’s good at following Lance’s lead. He’s not great at directing the dialogue between him himself, but he knows that Lance is all about the extrinsic motivation. “You haven’t fucked me in a while,” Shiro notes while giving Lance another quick snap of his hips. “If you do this it can be your turn.” This is another thing that’s all talk and no substance. Who is topping has never been a point of contention between them. It’s easy to switch back and forth with Lance when he trusts him so completely.

“Shiro how can you tease me like that when you’re the one in me?” he says in an almost desperate whine.

Shiro’s hand drifts from his hip up his chest to his nipples. He tweaks each one to facilitate the process.

“I know you want to do it,” Shiro notes.

His hand leaves his chest and goes back to his hip, then to the place that he knows without fail will make him come. His hand encircles the base of his tail and squeezes hard. His mouth is on his neck, and in an instant he’s coming against the tiles of the shower.

Shiro thrusts into him a few more times with quick snaps of his hips. He takes great pleasure at coming inside of Lance. It’s one of those deep and primal things that he just can’t shake, even though he feels as if he should.

When he pulls out he can’t help but look at Lance’s hole. The sight of it makes him want to get to his knees and eat Lance out all over again…But he has more pressing matters to attend to. Such as making sure that his boyfriend, who has been reduced to a boneless mass of gelatin makes it to bed.

“Maybe this would’ve been easier if we’d gotten out and went to bed first,” Shiro states as he tries to help Lance stay up while they dry off.

“Easier for you,” he says in between yawns. Lance never stayed awake long after sex.

Shiro finishes drying him off and helps him walk to bed. He pulls the bead spread over him.

“Hey,” Shiro pokes at his side a few times playfully. “Don’t go to sleep yet. I want to tell you something.”

“It can wait,” Lance says as his eyes flutter closed. “As long as no one is dying, it can wait.”

 


	4. Interruption

Lance was born in the Fish Bone. It was a cat shifter settlement that was little more than a glorified shantytown that ran down Pearl Street from the corner of Pearl and Terrace for a number of blocks to the corner of Pearl and Burgess, deep within the inner city. Never mind the fact that Pearl street itself was little more than a glorified alley way. Hundreds of shifters lived in that suffocating compact space lingering between human and animal form. Despite being born an alley cat, he’d like to think that he’s a very well acculturated cat.

Sure, he still lets himself get distracted by the occasional thing that dangles off of a string.  He’s gotten to the point now he knows when he has to let it go (school) and when he can chase after them and wrap his hand around the string and bat at it (home, when Shiro isn’t there to tell him that it’s cute). For the most part he knows when he should and should not have his ears covered to keep people from asking questions. He knows that if he’s in the presence of humans it’s better to say why something is wrong with words opposed to letting the animal take over and start hissing.

At the same time, he’s not ashamed of where he comes from. Although he is often read by other people as wholly human, it doesn’t instill a sense of pride in him.  He has some catnip he keeps up in the cupboard by Shiro’s special occasion brandy. He never fails to remind Shiro that his people were worshiped like gods in Egypt. He would have been very open to the idea of moving out to one of the cat communes out in rural areas where there was little expectation other than hunting and sleeping. Shiro changed all of that, made him reconsider what dreams could look like.

He’s never been able to make peace with one very feline behavior, sleeping the day away. He has responsibilities now, things that need to get done. On the other hand, the animal cries and whines and in turn makes him feel cranky when it doesn’t get enough rest.

Regardless, he’s a bit shocked to find that he sleeps from the early hours of the evening, through the night and into the next morning after he and Shiro showered together.

But he can’t argue with the big, almost angry and accusatory green numbers on the alarm clock that read 9:30.

“Morning,” Shiro says from the other side of the bed.

As Lance slowly transition from being more awake than asleep he can hear the soft constant click of Shiro typing away on his laptop.

Maybe the numbers were angry at Shiro and not him. After all, didn’t Shiro say that the tenure track stopped for no one?

Lance sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes. Then looks at Shiro. Usually seeing his partner first thing in the morning is a welcome sight. Lance loves sneaking glances at the way his unkempt hair looks in the morning. He’s addicted to how his stubble feels against his own skin.

However, this morning he’s greeted to the sight of Shiro typing with one hand and eating an English muffin covered in jelly with the other. In bed. Like that was an okay thing to do. He can feel his eyes narrow and the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

Certain habits die hard.

Shiro stops typing and looks up. “Oh,” he says as if he knows he’s been caught.

Under normal circumstances he’d love to tease Shiro about the situation at hand. Try his hardest to make him feel uncomfortable about committing Lance’s number one pet peeve just to get him a little bit wound up.

But he hasn’t had anything to eat since last night, and he’s starving. So he opts for the next best route. He plucks what’s left of the muffin from Shiro’s hand and eats it in a swift and greedy motion.

Shiro’s jaw goes slack in response. “I would’ve made you one,” he says in a tone that makes him sound like a 6’2” child.

Lance can’t decide if it’s hilarious or heart wrenching.

Lance folds back the dark navy covers and reveals neutral gray colored sheets beneath. He makes a bit show of brushing off the mattress in case if any spare crumbs got in.  

“You wanted to tell me something before I passed out?”

When he sees Shiro’s face light up like that with a smile stretching from ear to ear, he knows it’s going to be good.

Shiro pulls a business card out of his nightstand drawer and thrusts it into Lance’s hand.

Lance reads the card once, twice, but still doesn’t know what it means. He traces the slightly raised letters on the card slowly the third time as if he could absorb their meaning. “Coran Alfor, Private Detective and Retriever of Information.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look,” Shiro has started worrying his lower lip with his teeth. That’s something he only does when he’s really nervous or uncertain of an outcome. It makes Lance’s heart skip a beat in anticipation.

Shiro takes Lance’s hand into his own. Lance used to hate the feeling of cold metal against his skin, but he loves it now. It’s something that is so uniquely Shiro that he couldn’t help but grow addicted to it.

“We have so few resources when it comes to looking for your mother and sisters. We really could use some help and some leads. So I hired someone to help us. A professional.”

“Shiro, no way.” He can feel his mouth pull into a smile that threatens to match the one Shiro flashed him moments ago. “You seriously did this for me?”

Shiro does nothing more than give a simple nod and rub the back of his undercut with his prosthetic. It’s something he does only when he’s nervous or embarrassed.

He can barely hold a coherent thought in his head other than he really wants to give Shiro the biggest hug in the history of hugs.

So he does.

* * *

Never in a million goddamn years did he ever imagine he’d be back on Pearl street let alone on the very edges of the Fishbone. The parts that weren’t run over by shanties, lean-tos  and near permanent tent like structures were dilapidated businesses beyond repair. Only the poorest and most desperate of people lived down here, and everything smelled like mildew.

Keith hopes he remembers this correctly. All the details of his life before he woke up with the housecat and his “master” were fuzzy. But there’s something about this particular corner mart with the heavy wrought iron bars over the window that sticks out in his mind. These were painted yellow, and faded in the sun so that they were a forgettable sallow color.

And this small sliver of hope is much better than mulling about in semi-public spaces until he’s shooed away like a regular alley cat.

Keith rounds the corner to the steps that go up to the second floor. These too are painted the same yellow color and mottled with ugly red brown rust. He’s certain he’s in the right spot.

So, he hops over the barricade to the steps and starts taking them two at a time.

“Hey I thought I told you bastards to-“ a deep booming voice explodes from the open window. Next, a head almost comically too large for the very small window sticks out.

Keith’s relieved when he sees that orange headband trying to contain unkempt hair and wild eyebrows.

He flattens his palms and holds his hands up to show that he means no harm. “Just me Hunk.”

“Oh my god no way.” Hunk’s still yelling, but any hint of anger is gone from his voice. Just as suddenly as it appeared through the window, Hunk’s head disappears. Keith can hear the sound of several locks being turned in the opposite direction and soon he’s being swept up into Hunk’s arms. “Keith,” the other man buries his face into his shoulder. He knows he’s holding back a sob. “I thought you were dead.”

“Thought I was dead huh,” Keith deadpans as Hunk leads him inside. He’s itching to go to the cabinet and make them both some catnip tea just like old times. He’d rather be numb right now than deal with the fact that he has no idea how long he’s been feral or what made him that way. But it’s best to know.

“Where have you been?”

“So two days ago I woke up in a house on the north side out by the university owned by a human and his housecat.” Keith flops down onto the couch. He never in a million years thought he’d miss these ugly ass red orange colored roses or the texture that he can only compare to a burlap sack but damn, being here with Hunk is the first thing that’s happened in the past 48 hours that doesn’t scare the shit out of him. “Last thing I remember is that you and me were doing a job. That right?”

“Yeah,” Hunk flops into his oversized chair. It makes a pained squeaking noise against the cheap linoleum flooring as Hunk’s huge frame sinks into the chair. “We were doing a job. Remember what kinda job?”

“Something difficult. Birds or mice or something that I really wanted to eat.”

“Mice.”

“Botched intel or something?”

“Nah, our lead was solid. She really wanted those mice back. Like she wanted to come with us, and you had to straight up threaten her that the whole thing would be ruined if we had some rookie goin’ round with us.”

Hunk gets up, takes a few large steps into the kitchenette, and grabs some bread and butter from the kitchen. “Sorry I didn’t offer sooner. You’re probably hungry huh?”

Keith eagerly snatches up the food. He was starved. “So what happened?” He says in between bites of crusty, near stale bread.

“Well you know, I had two one in each hand, and you had two one in each hand, and we were trying really really hard to not eat them and then…You know. Goons with guns. I fought a few off and ran away but I lost you, and the mice.”

Keith takes a moment to absorb it all. He always knew he’d probably die in this line of “work”. All he was just a glorified kidnapper. Some dirt bag human wants a shifter, some dirt bag human takes the shifter, he and Hunk get them back for a small fee from the un-enslaved friends and families. A lot of things are fuzzy, but he can remember that much from his past. He’d always thought it would’ve been something more exotic than mice that would fuck him over. A bear or a peacock or something.

“Now,” Hunk continues. “Here’s the kicker. How long ago do you think that was?”

Keith shrugs. He has no  goddamn clue.

“A year ago dude.” Hunk says refusing to meet his eyes when he said it.

Keith feels really fucking stupid right now. Like how could he not have looked at a calendar or seen a newspaper or _something_ when he was off playing housecat yesterday? A whole year, what had happened between now and then?

Keith’s eyes dart from Hunk in his chair, to the cot pressed against the corner of the living room, and then to the additional one stowed in the corner.  Things certainly changed while he was gone.

“You still in business?” Not that he’s raring to go back into whatever made him lose a year of his life.

“Not at all. Shay’s family moved in and I had to get a real job. I’m in school now though.”

Keith furrows his brows. “Any chance you have anything I can wear?” These pajamas have got to go. Hunk gets up, goes to the closet that sits between the living room and the single bedroom. “This is all I got,” and hands him his jacket and his knife.

It will have to do for now. Keith tries to fit the large knife into the overly small pockets of his pajama pants. It sticks out awkwardly and looks more stupid than it does intimidating.

“You’re more than welcome to stay here.”

He contemplates it for a moment. He knew for a fact that Shay’s family consisted of her brother, a younger sister, and her mother. It’s a crowded house for a one bedroom. “Gonna have to pass. Thanks for the offer though.”

“Hey, you leaving?”

Keith’s up and half way to the door before Hunk asks. It’s nothing personal, but the whole thing is giving him a rash. Every inch of his skin is crawling with anxiety and anger, and there isn’t a goddamn thing he can do about it.

 “Where are you gonna go man?” There’s a hint of fear in his voice. Like he’s going to walk out the door and never come back. He’s so pissed off and confused he just might. Who knows?

“Don’t know don’t care.” He manages to choke out.

“Look, I wish you wouldn’t but,” Hunk does that thing where he threads his fingers together and interlocks them. Then he touches the ends of his index fingers together in anxiety. “I wouldn’t stick around Pearl Street if I were you.”

Makes sense, especially if people think he’s dead.

* * *

Leaving Hunk’s was a stupid idea, he decides after city parks close and he’s got to leave or risk getting hassled by the cops. It’s too late to back. They’re all asleep and no one needs a knock on their door after midnight around those parts. Throwing away the professor and his housecat’s key was probably a stupid idea too. He realizes this around 2 AM when he gets asked to leave the 24 hour diner after his third free refill of coffee.

At the very least, he could’ve snuck in and taken some money or something small that he could pawn quickly, a driver’s license or a health insurance card. Things like that always go for a high price on the black market.

Speaking of which, he’s done exactly what Hunk has told him not to do by 3 AM. He’s up on the north end of the bone, the older part, further away from Hunk’s apartment. The streets are mostly quiet, but it’s summer and it’s hot and Keith would love to say that he’s the strangest looking thing out right now in his pajamas, exposed ears, and knife brazenly displayed for all to see. From the street he can hear the cries of hungry kittens. He can see mange covered elders who can barely hold their human form. They look at him through their cloudy cataract eyes and undoubtedly make judgements.

Why linger? Keith wonders. Go feral, be free, and die in peace.

He recalls this particular alcove in between the Episcopal Church and “Auntie” Xu’s flop house. He’s spent plenty of nights wedged in-between those two buildings. He’s not even sure if he can fit in there without shifting, and considering how fucked up he must’ve been…He’s not sure he wants to risk it.

He decides that it’s probably filled with flea ridden cats anyway.

He’s never felt at home here. He’d argue that nobody does. It’s dirty and stinky and absolutely awful. But he’s not used to being a stranger either.

So he shuffles onward. Did it always smell this bad? Were the stars and moon always so blocked out by the light pollution?

He’s at the Fish Bone’s midpoint which is the old fishmongers’ shop. Legend has it that the fishbone was built around the kindness of one guy and his willingness to throw fish carcasses out in the alley for cats to pick at.  It’s here where he breaks out into the cold sweat.

Whatever.

Another few blocks and he starts to feel sluggish. Like he’s eaten a big meal, or has been hit by a tranquilizer dart. Further still, and he feels hot, feverish almost. Is he getting sick? Has he gotten sick like this before? He tries to remember the past, but again the details are fuzzy.

He makes it to the intersection of Cherry Street when another cat approaches him. He’s big and muscular, and has a huge ugly scar that runs over his eye so that’s milky. His ears are clipped, and Keith can barely see the short bobbed tail sticking out the back of his pants. It’s the kind of thing that could be easily tucked in, but he wanted others to see it.

A few options unfold in his mind, like running away or the knife, but his brain is fuzzy. It feels like when he came to a few days ago, but worse because his mind is becoming more muddled by the second.

“Hey little kitty,” There’s a big imposing hand on his wrist locking him in place. “Why come you smell so good?” And the larger cat is on top of him, pushing him into a wall.

Keith weaves in and out of reality. The words this bastard is saying barely register. He tries to focus his vision but everything goes double and off center. He can see three identical and overlapping copies of the streetlamp before him in his vision.

“You smell like a dame in heat.”

And that statement pulls Keith back to reality, even if it’s just for a moment. He remembers the knife. Where is the knife? He knows he had his knife.

He doesn’t remember stabbing the tomcat. It only registers when his hands are drenched in blood and the tomcat is cursing him to filth. In a brief moment of clarity, he realizes that he has to get out of here, now. Somewhere, anywhere but here. Keith runs, and runs, and runs until his lungs are burning and his feet are surely blistered. He keeps going despite this, because whether its because of how he smells or what he’s done, he’s not welcome here.

Keith goes towards the university. He _knows_ for a fact that not very many shifters live on this part of town. They aren’t exactly welcomed there.

* * *

“You make the best noises when you’re like this Shiro,” Lance says as he crooks his finger deeper within Shiro. He’d made good on his promise to come without being touched last night, and he fully intended to take him up on his offer.

Not to mention the surprise earlier this morning? Yeah, he’s gonna do everything in his power to take care of Shiro this time. “Then again of course you would. You’ve got one of the most skilled partners taking care of you,” Lance says more so to reassure himself than to reassure Shiro.

Shiro does little else than moan in response, so it must be true. “Like seriously Shiro, you’re so good at this. If I weren’t so addicted to taking your cock I’d do this to you all the time.” Lance slides in another finger and watches the result.

Shiro pushes back against him and chokes out, “Lance, fuck.”

“Soon enough babe.” He says it with wavering confidence. Shiro makes him feel so _damn_ good literally all of the time, and how can he even begin to compete with that?

Shiro turns back and asks, “Is this what it’s like when I make you wait?”

Shiro looks so damn good like this. His eyes are blown wide and his scar all but disappears into the cherry red tone of his skin.

“No,” Lance says as he lets another finger slip in.

Shiro bites his lip at the added pressure, and god does that ever drive him wild.

“I don’t have the patience to tease like you do.”

It’s so rare that Shiro becomes completely undone like this. Usually he’s the one who has to be grounded in some way, or forced back into reality for the sake of moving forward. But right now Shiro is so open and so pliant that there’s absolutely nothing that can ruin this for him.

* * *

This was stupid.

Like so fucking stupid. Why did he ever consider going back to be a good idea? Why can’t he make himself stop walking in the general direction of their house? Is it because it’s easier to fight off one pheromone drunk cat than five? Is it because the human didn’t seem like a complete scumbag and probably wouldn’t hurt him?

Or is it just because he’s stupid and he’s determined to lose another year of his life?

The animal part of his brain keeps yelling at him that Hunk’s is the safest place for him to go. The human part reminds him how stupid that would’ve been. How it would have required him to walk all the way back through the Fishbone, inevitably attracting more attention.                                                                                                                 

He can’t firmly decide if this is the best course of action, nor can he tear himself away. He finds himself at their front door and he sinks the claws from one hand into the hardwood of the door. With the other he starts ringing the doorbell incessantly. 

* * *

He rotates his fingers and watches Shiro’s face contort once more. No, he’s not as skilled as Shiro is in the endless teasing department, but he can try.

_Bing bong, bing bong_

The doorbell rings from downstairs.

“We’re just going to ignore that,” Lance says trying to hold back the fact that he’s very miffed. No one ever comes to visit them at 10:30 on a Saturday morning. Of course, someone would decide to do so today.

Lance begins to work his fingers again, but the rings keep coming in an agonized and relentless barrage.

 _Bing bong, bing bong._  

Shiro’s  losing interest. He can tell by his miffed expression and rapidly waning arousal. Damnit no.

Go away! He silently orders to whomever it is pounding at their door. “Really?” He throws back the covers and tugs on his boxers. The moment is ruined. Whoever it is Schwann Man or Jehovah’s witness, he’s really going to ruin theirs.

“Lance put on some pants.”

But he’s already stomped halfway down the stairs and really angry. There’s no way he’s stomping back up the steps. He reaches the door and throws it open.

Instantly his jaw goes slack. There before him, somehow dirtier and smellier than two days prior was Keith.

“He gave you a key dumbass!” He all but hisses at the other shifter.

“I threw it out,” he says through clenched teeth.

Then it fully clicks that something is wrong. Keith is laying in a crumpled mess on the stoop. He’s still wearing the pajamas he left the house in a few days ago, but there are the undeniable brown stains of dried blood on his clothes. And then there’s the other nagging issue on top of the more urgent ones.

Keith smells. He smells like B.O. and gutter funk sure. That’s nothing new when dealing with this guy. But he also smells kind of…good.

Lance bends at the waist so he can try to drag Keith inside. He does so awkwardly, and Keith all but crawls up on him and presses his nose to his hip bone.

Which makes him really really wish he’d taken Shiro suggestion and threw on some pants.

“I’m disgusting.”

“I know you are.”

“And weak.”

“Please shut up you’re giving me a headache.” He can hear Shiro’s heavy footsteps as he comes down the stairs. He did opt for pants, and Lance is instantaneously jealous of his good sense and foresight.

Keith continues to writhe around for a bit. He makes noises that are akin to the ones he made before he opened his mouth and let them know that he could talk. It’s beyond bizarre. Was he about to shift back?

“Lance?” He can feel Shiro’s hand on his shoulder. “What is he doing?”

“Honestly Shiro,” he takes a cautious step backwards towards Shiro. He desperately, urgently needs to get away from Keith.  Maybe it’s the smell, maybe it’s the fact that he was seconds away from plowing the ever loving everything out of Shiro. Whatever it is, he’s acutely aware that he’s very hard again. “I have no idea."


	5. Guilt

“Shiro buddy, I don’t mean to offend but,” Lance says when he comes back downstairs. He’s got more clothes on this time…Loose sweats and an even looser shirt to go over the top (okay, it’s Shiro’s) because if he’s being honest things haven’t exactly returned to normal down there yet.  “I don’t think that’s going to do him much good.”

Keith’s still in the foyer. He’s moved from curled up into the fetal position to being sprawled out across the tacky fake Persian style floor rug they keep over the hardwood. Shiro’s by his side clutching a glass of ginger ale.

Shiro may have his doctoral degree, but he makes sure to remind everyone that it’s _of philosophy_ and not _of medicine_ at every turn. Lance could literally be dying of organ failure and sepsis and be set on fire at the same time, and he’s pretty sure the best option Shiro could come up with would be to give him a glass of ginger ale.

“What do you suggest then?”

“Maybe he needs ice in that.”

He can see Shiro rocking on the balls of his feet to get up. Like he’s serious. So he shoots him his best “oh my god I was just kidding please don’t leave me here with this mess,” kind of look.

Suddenly, Keith rolls over onto his stomach and quickly pivots to his knees. “Lance,” he hisses.

Lance squats down so that he’s at Keith’s level. His hair is stuck to his skin which is soaked with sweat. His eyes are blown wide, and Lance’s has never seen such a pained mixture of emotions contained within a single expression. He’s angry and terrified, while simultaneously being transfixed.

It must be bad for him to come back here.

“I’m going to tell you something.” He screws his eyes closed. He’s in clearly in pain, but when he bites the bottom of his lip and interrupts himself with soft little moans, it’s clear that something else is going on.

And not just with Keith. The display goes straight to his crotch and lingers there despite the fact that he’s trying his hardest to focus his energy elsewhere. The nasty bloodstains on Keith’s shirt or the fact that he needs to pay the water bill by the end of the week or…..

“I just need you to believe me.”

Lance nods, and then forces himself to reply, “Okay,” because Keith can’t see him with his eyes clamped shut.

“I think I’m in heat.”

It would explain the uncontrolled shifting. The animal wants what the animal wants, and it will go to great lengths to get it. It would also explain the sweating, the writhing on the floor, as well as the desperation for contact. He had to all but peel Keith off of his leg to go up stairs. He instantly affixed himself to Shiro in his absence.

There’s just one tiny problem with that claim.

Keith’s a guy.

Shiro blurts out what he’s thinking before he can think of a way to phrase it so that Keith won’t get pissed off. “How is that even possible?”

Keith’s eyes narrow on Shiro, as if his doubt has pulled him back into reality, even if it’s just for a moment. “If I knew, do you think I’d be here?” He spits back.

As messed up as it sounds, it also explains a few things about his current situation. He still hasn’t gone soft even though with all this fuckery going on he really should’ve. He can’t compare it to anything he’s ever experienced before, he’s never been into girls and so the smell of them going into heat has never got him going. But this, this was something entirely.

Lance hasn’t so much as jerked it to the thought of another person since he met Shiro. Felt guilty the one time they watched porn together, but right now? He really wants to brush right past Shiro and mount the guy right here in the middle of the foyer, with the front door wide open.

He’s disgusting.

“Shiro,” it must be his own voice. He can feel his mouth moving and he can feel Shiro’s eyes shift to meet him. But it’s so shaky and uncertain, it sounds alien. “A word?”

Shiro nods and they dip into the kitchen. He tries to pretend that he doesn’t see Keith’s eyes narrow again in fear while he bites his lip and holds in a silent plea for the sake of trying to preserve his pride.

* * *

“You think he’s telling the truth.” It’s a statement not a question. Shiro’s mouth is pulled into a firm thin line. It shows Lance that he’s very confused, but wants to be strong if for no other purpose than to make Lance himself feel better.  

“Yeah,” he feels like he’s just ran a few miles: sweaty, out of breath, and disgusting.

“It’s affecting you.” Again it’s not a question. The “negatively,” is implied, and he knows what’s coming next. Shiro is going to ask him point blank what he wants to do.

He wished he knew.

“What do you need me to do?” It’s not the question he anticipated, and for that he’s grateful. He can feel a firm hand on his hip, and a thumb rubbing in slow circles that bring him back down to the ground. He can’t help but flash Shiro a half smile. He’s so good to him. Too good to him. Which is probably why he needs to pay it forward to the poor bastard writhing out on the floor.

“Must be bad for him to be here,” he wants to say more but his mouth goes dry. “But I can’t help you take care of him.” He leaves out what he actually needs Shiro to do, which is to understand _why_ he can’t be near him, and that he does think that they should let the poor bastard stay. He’d like to think that it’s largely implied.

“Okay,” Shiro’s brows knit in consternation and his jaw locks in place in tandem with the movements of his brow.

* * *

Keith can’t make out what they’re saying. They use hushed tones, but he knows they’re talking about him. It makes him irrationally angry even though he knows that they have every right to since he’s the one that showed up and clawed his way into their house.

All he really knows for sure is that the scent of arousal from both of them is thick in the air and despite the fact that _they_ as a couple are wrong they smell very good. It forces every meaningful thought from his head like, “why was this happening?” or “how long would it last,” and made him think ugly and shameful things like how to get one of them, preferably Lance (less disgusting than a human) on top of him.

Pitifully he grinds his own face into the rug until his skin feels irritated and hot. He’s not sure if it’s from the building heat inside of him or the abuse he’s self-inducing to his skin.

He can feel unconsciousness nip at the back of is brain and heavily inhibit his body. The only thing he can think of is that he hopes that the next time he comes to, it’s within the next hour or day and that another year isn’t ripped from him.

* * *

_You are my sunshine, my only sunshine._

_You make me happy when skies are grey_

Keith can hear the words in a deep low timber. The words fade in and out, and he can’t tell if it’s because whomever is singing skips back and forth between words and hums, or if it’s because he’s hallucinating.

He does know for a fact that he hates this song.

He has deep distant memories of his mother singing it to him. Always somewhere nice like a field, or a worn dirt path, and never somewhere filthy like the Fishbone. The very image makes him question if it’s a real memory or something that actually happened.

His mother would only sing the chorus, and then one day he heard the rest long after his mother was gone. Ruined it.

_You told me once, dear, you really loved me_ _  
And no one else could come between._

He opens his eyes, blinks a few times, and slowly the rapid rotation of a ceiling fan comes into view.

He still feels disgusting. The sweat on his body has cooled and left him feeling clammy. He’s still needlessly aroused, but he can control it now. Like someone started making out with him and then left him with a semi. He’s pissed, but he can manage.

_But now you've left me and love another_

_You have shattered all of my dreams_

 

“My mother used to sing that,” he croaks out awkwardly for a lack of any other coherent thought that he can hold and keep in his head.

The singing abruptly stops, and is followed up by, “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Keith cranes his neck so he can see who he’s talking to. It’s the big guy. The human, Shiro. He’s beet red as if he didn’t expected to get caught. Which is stupid because he’s siting just a few feet away. Of course he’s going to hear.

 “You suck,” he lets his head loll to the other side so that he can break eyecontact. He can feel the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop himself “At least you’re  not one of those assholes who only sing the chorus.” He purses his lips shut as soon as the words roll off his lips. Although his body has cooled down, it’s only a small fraction compared to his usual icy demeanor. Which means yes, he kind of wishes it were Lance, even though he’s probably the most insufferable of his own kind he’s ever met.

The man next to him laughs. It’s deep and warm and despite how fucked up the entire situation is and the fact that he’s painfully human, he doesn’t feel scared.

Maybe he’s just thinking with his dick.

“Where am I?” He asks. The settings are different from the room they’d put him in before. There’s no stifling oversized quilt on him this time, nor is there white crown molding that frames the solid light blue walls. He runs his fingers along a long plush back. Oh, he must be on a sofa. But it’s not the one he sat on with Lance before.

Shiro furrows his eyebrows. He’s choosing his words carefully which means he’s about to say something that Keith won’t like. “You’re where you won’t bother Lance,” he pauses, and then keeps talking. “And where any other shifters, if they were around couldn’t smell you.”

“Basement?”

“Basement,” he says with a sigh. “I’m sorry, it seemed like the best option.” After a long pause he continues, “You’re not being held here though. I don’t want you to think that.”

* * *

Lance isn’t a jealous guy. No-siree he’s just not. Shiro’s a damn good looking guy, and super nice too and if he got upset at every single person that flirted with him, or made eyes at him he’d have a bigger gray patch than Shiro does.

Shiro can’t smell the pheromones dripping off of Keith. Plus, Shiro is Shiro blushing golden boy monogamous astronomer genius.

So he feels really stupid, like a tomcat hissing at uninterested passerby when he grabs his laptop and his workbook and scoots a chair up against the fridge just a few feet away from the basement door. He justifies it saying that maybe Shiro will try to cram more ginger ale down the poor guy’s throat and he should be ready to get him more, but in all reality he knows what’s going on.

He wants Keith. It comes from a stubborn and irrational part of his brain that does little else on a day to day basis other than swat at dangling strings. He wants Keith and Shiro’s the one who gets to tend to him, because he can’t be trusted.

He wants Shiro. Now. His big arms encircling his waist, his hands roaming across his stomach…touches that were meant to ignite something deep within but always resulted in tickling followed by claws lightly dug into Shiro’s arm.

Instead he’ll have to settle for moping. Alone.

* * *

Keith still feels like he’s having an out of body experience. It’s not quite as strong as the fight or fuck feeling that enveloped him last night, but it’s hard to stay present. Most of his energy is going into concentrating on the glass in his hand. It’s wet with condensation and cold to the touch. If he keeps holding it, his hand threatens to become numb. But the liquid inside is fizzy and too sweet and despite the fact that he’s quite thirsty, he can’t bring himself to keep drinking it.

“Come again?” Keith says after Shiro’s voice pulls him back into reality.

“I lost a year of my life too.” The human nods to his prosthetic arm. “It can’t compare to whatever you’ve gone through but…” his voice trails off softly.

“How did you know?” Although he knows the polite course of conversation is, “How did it happen,” but he’s never been much for polite conversation.

“You were semi-lucid. Said a few things.”

Keith wonders for a moment what else qualifies as, “things.”

Shiro keeps talking despite the fact that he knows he’s given no indication that he’d like to continue. “It’s a very slow process, but you will get to a point where you will start getting answers.” He closes the large shelf worn book he’s had balanced in his lap.

The scent of mildew and dust from it’s ancient sallow pages make him want to wretch, but Shiro seems unfazed.  “It might take years, or even decades but eventually you will have more answers that questions.”

While Shiro talks, Keith looks at the man before him. His mouth seems to be pulled into a near constant half smile. His muscles are well defined, but not in the way you earn them on the streets from running your ass off and being a meal or two away from malnourishment.

“But I’ll leave it at that,” Shiro concludes. “And if you’d like to talk about it more, we can.”

Keith can feel his temperature begin to climb again and the clamminess that clings to his skin threatens to transform to out and out wetness and arousal.

Sure he’s played the honeypot a few times for the sake of a job, but he’s never felt attraction towards a human before. He’d been inwardly so proud of that for so long and…

He chalks it up to whatever drug he’s been given or whatever it is that has been done to his body. Or the fact that he can smell Lance on his clothes. Still…He can feel even more words tumble out of his mouth. Words that he wouldn’t say otherwise if he were in another situation. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he says.

He hands the glass of too sweet liquid back to Shiro and lets his hands linger far too long on the human’s. “You can keep talking though,” he says as he lays back down on the couch. “It will keep me awake.”

“Are you afraid of falling asleep?” Shiro asks.

Keith hopes it was a rhetorical because he’s really serious about not wanting to talk.

“Even though your body craves it. Afraid you won’t wake back up.”

Keith does offer a small humph of agreement in response. His body is also craving something else right now…

Shiro begins to string statements together. They don’t make a coherent story, nor are they particularly interesting, but they do keep him from falling asleep, and they do keep him off of the precipice of coming in his pants. So it’s fine.

“I was in a car accident in-between the third and fourth year of my Ph.D .” Which is quickly followed by, “I was in a coma for a week and a half.” And then there’s some unneeded attempts to relate. “I don’t know if what you went through was like that, but I couldn’t talk at first either. Couldn’t hold a thought in my head.” He doesn’t want it, because quite frankly, Shiro can’t do it.

“I wouldn’t have made it if I didn’t have Lance.” The mention of the other cat causes his tail to flick in interest, and the body language isn’t lost on Shiro. “Lance was everything to me…I mean he still is but you need to have somebody. If you don’t have somebody, I think Lance wouldn’t mind being that for you. He’s good like that.”

Keith can feel the hot tinge of a blush creep into his cheeks and he can only hope that he carpet burned the shit out of his face during his episode earlier.

The gravity of his follow up statement, “I guess I could too. Pay it forward,” Isn’t lost on him. He’s nice to him because of Lance. He’s nice to him because he doesn’t see him as a dirty shifter, but as an equal. That should piss him off in some way because to his core he has been and always will be a dirty feral shifter…but it doesn’t.

The stupid heat addled part of his brain almost feels like he’s being doted on. It’s disgusting.

There’s a small touch at his arm. Shiro’s adjusting the sheet and has let his hand linger there. Keith tries to show him a look of harshness and resentment, but he just can’t bring himself to do it. Not when Shiro is looking at him not with pity but with understanding. That in and of itself is infuriating. Shiro can’t understand.

Before he knows it, the rolling scorching hellfire of the heat is back. The calm that had enveloped him for the few fleeting moments between waking up and now were gone. Arousal was crashing over him relentlessly like waves on the shore to the point where it was stifling. Surely he had to notice that he had one hand already stuffed into his pants.

“Keith?” His voice is shaky and uncertain. “Are you alright?”

It’s such a fucked up question.  “I’m in heat. You’ve gotta know what that’s about.”

Shiro’s jaw is set into a firm line, his expression is unwavering

“I don’t think it’s gonna go away unless I…” He can see a long pale hand flop out from underneath the sheet. He can see it snake forward and grab Shiro’s thigh. It must be the least sexy thing ever. He can hear a pathetic almost wanton moan, and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s him who is making the sound. God he hates himself so much right now. He wants to curl up into a corner and die.

“I’ll leave you to it then.” Shiro turns on his heel to leave, but his impact is undeniable. Keith can see the firm outline of his cock through his loose fitting sweat pants.

* * *

Shiro almost knocks Lance over when he reaches the landing of the steps and throws the door open.

“Shiro, oh man I was totally not spying,” Lance says too quickly. “Totally not,” He repeats as he drowns in a rush of pheromones that spill up from downstairs.

It doesn’t help that their houseguest is moaning “Shiro” in a voice that he thought only he could muster.  

Shiro slams the door shut and collapses against it’s heavy wooden frame. He’s only been down there for a half an hour, but he looks exhausted.

“I’m sorry Lance,” he says in shaky breaths. His voice is laden with guilt, and it doesn’t sound like Shio at all. He runs his hand through his hair. “I’m so sorry. We were talking and the next thing I knew his hands were down his pants.

While Shiro talks, Lance can’t help but notice what’s going on in Shiro’s pants. Can’t help but want to rub all over Shiro and cover up that stench.

Yes, he’s jealous. Incredibly so…but it’s almost comforting seeing Shiro, seeing someone who is the apex of human reason and restraint be bothered by this too. He doesn’t like seeing Shiro in distress like this, but it alleviates the guilt he had towards his earlier Keith driven hard on.

All of a sudden the gears start turning in Lance’s head. Lance is used to being turned on by just a smell. He’s used to wanting to bang a guy that he can’t stand because of it.

Shiro’s not.

For every ounce of jealousy he feels, Shiro must feel ten in guilt. And he knows that Shiro isn’t that kind of person. He knows that Shiro didn’t do anything to illicit that response. Doesn’t want that response. Suddenly, he’s gripped by the throat in a very constricting sense of guilt…to put Shiro through that without explaining himself.

“Shiro,” he tugs on his hand. “Shiro it’s okay.” He’s overwhelmed by the need to fix all of this immediately and blanket Shiro with affection.  “Come on, let’s go upstairs. Let’s talk about it.” He’s all but hanging off of Shiro’s arm by now begging. “Please.” He knows that saying, “I’m not mad,” is a good way to let your partner know that you probably are mad and passive aggressive. He can’t help it. He’s not mad and Shiro needs to know.

* * *

They don’t talk about it. At least not right away. At a certain point Lance runs out of things to say before they even hit the staircase, so he’s reduced to doing nothing more than pulling Shiro down for a very rough kiss.

The kind of rough that doesn’t even feel good at the start. Their lips meet too hard too fast and bruise, but by the time they pull away and try again they find their pace. Lance can feel the stubble growing on Shiro’s face since their entire morning routine was interrupted.

Soon, all semblance of having a discussion is gone. Instead he’s pushing Shiro down onto the couch.

Shiro is still murmuring “I’m sorry,” in small needy moans, and the only thing Lance can do in response kiss harder, bite harder, palm Shiro through his pants faster.

Shiro has nothing to be sorry about. He’s the one that burdened him with cultures and processes he doesn’t understand. He’s the one that’s forced this strange form of altruism him because he can’t trust the animal within.

When he finally fucks into Shiro he wants to sob because it feels so good. He can only hope that he convey everything he means with his actions. He’s good at always having _something_ to say, but more often than not these days when it comes to Shiro, he’s not sure _how_ to say it.


	6. Bonding

If having an in heat shifter around caused _that_ to happen, then maybe it isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to them.

“The thing about using sex to defer your problems, is that it eventually ends huh? Then you have to go back to dealing with your problems,” Lance notes as Shiro rubs slow uneven circles into the small of his back.

For a moment he thinks that since he’s the one who just fucked Shiro so hard he’s sore, he should be the one doing the rubbing and the cuddling.

Then Shiro goes for the spot at the base of his tail and he’s so fucking donezo. There’s no way in hell he’s going to be able to play the attentive top with that kind of action going on.

“Hm,” Shiro says in agreement. “I didn’t like what happened.”

There’s more there despite the fact that Shiro goes quiet and stays quiet.  Shiro doesn’t always communicate what’s wrong so much as he holds stuff in until it bubbles over. He’s determined to squash whatever it is what’s going on instead of enduring days, if not weeks of Shiro internalizing an issue in the relationship that they can both work on.

“I don’t want you to think that I’m making excuses for myself,” He kind of is, but he feels guilty, and that means you’re not making an excuse, right? “But all of that. All of that’s supposed to happen. I mean from an evolutionary, pass on genetic material perspective,” never mind the fact that modern science as humans know it can’t account for the “why” and the “how” of shifter existence.

“Keith’s body was telling him to get a reaction from us. So he did. It’s not like it’s something where someone can really be at fault.”

“I don’t understand how you can be so level headed about this.”

The short answer is, he has to be. When Shiro’s unsure he has to step up and be the tough guy. Just like when he’s afraid it’s Shiro’s job. Don’t get him wrong, there’s a time and a place for mutual vulnerability. But Shiro wouldn’t expect _him_ to have all the answers when it comes to “science stuff,” so he can at least pretend to have the answers when it comes to the big scary world of the borderline supernatural.

“I think that if Keith stays here, even if it’s just for awhile it doesn’t matter if he makes a pass at us, or one of us gets worked up because of it. If we don’t do anything we didn’t do anything wrong right?” Lance is about a half sentence away from rambling. Obviously the primary goal here is to protect Shiro and make Shiro feel better. Then again, he can’t explain why he feels so compelled to protect this stranger except for no reason other than kinship.

“But we’ll talk to each other about it right?” He can feel the concern rolling off of Shiro, so he rolls them on the bed slightly so that he can be the one to do all the rubbing on Shiro. He makes sure to pay special attention to his pecs, his biceps, and his chest. Lance would say that these are the places on Shiro’s body he loves the most, but that’s a lie. He loves all of it.

“Yeah, and when Keith comes back to Earth we can talk about it too. Or he’ll just leave in the middle of the night again.”

 

“Why do you think he’s like that? Has heats?”

“Dunno,” Lance responds dreamily. It’s super hard to pay attention to anything important when you have the world’s most attractive human in front of you. “Seemed like it surprised him too.” Seriously, it was criminal how great Shiro is. Nice, and cute, and smart….”I’d love to find out though.”

* * *

Shiro decides that when Keith isn’t actively trying to coerce him to committing adultery, he’s really a nice person.

Keith reads, voraciously. This is something unexpected for Shiro. It’s not fair of him to judge, but he never expected that the man who ~~didn’t~~ couldn’t speak for a few days, the man who had no identification and a clouded memory, would settle into his books so quickly.

He starts off with undergraduate textbooks. Shiro has multiple copies of sample texts from the publisher littered about the house, so they’re really accessible. Shiro leaves a big stack of them in the basement for Keith to read alongside some of Lance’s paperback novels. He doesn’t keep track of how many Keith’s read, but by the time he and Lance can be in the same room without painful wailing and begging, and other indicators of heat happening, Keith’s asking him, “Do you have anything else?”

Shiro decides he must’ve finished them all because Lance’s taste in literature was _questionable_. The young adult stuff is fine. No judgement there. However, Lance has spent a lot of time and money following a softcore lesbian space series, which utterly baffles Shiro, since his partner is self-described as, “super gay.”

Never the less, Shiro brings him a stack of old scientific journals from his office. They come each month with his professional association memberships, but he rarely cracks them open. Everything is online these days and he’s got quite the annotation system down on his tablet.

Three days after Keith wandered back into their home, one day after he unloads a mountain of journals at his feet, Keith does something that doesn’t happen to him often. Maybe teaching at a large university’s gotten him jaded. Maybe he’s just not as good of an instructor as he should be.

But Keith asks him a question, and it honest to god amazes him.

It happens over breakfast. He’s got a faculty meeting at nine, and then new graduate student orientation at ten. There’ a prospective M.S. student that wants to work on him, so he’s expected to meet up with them.

Lance’s negotiating the perils of his morning meal. He’s made the grave mistake of putting milk in his cereal bowl before the actual cereal and is now traumatized at the scene before him. Shiro makes a mental note to brew another pot of coffee immediately. His partner needs it.

Meanwhile, Keith’s cognizant enough to join them. He’s got one of the journals open by his side as he stirs some milk into his own coffee.

The pants he’s wearing are a pair of too long blue joggers that he recognizes as Lance’s, and a three quarter sleeve length shirt that droops off of his shoulder. That could be Lance’s or it could be his. With the exception of some of Lance’s tighter shirts, there were few boundaries on whose clothes belonged to who at this point. If he stays, they’re going to have to buy him some clothes that actually fit.

“So I read your article last night.”

Shiro almost chokes on his own coffee. People outside of conferences rarely say that. And if they do, it’s usually followed up by a backhanded compliment.

“I don’t understand.”

“Which article?” Shiro begins. He doesn’t expect Keith to understand. Most undergrads in his classes can’t read a scientific article _properly_ until their in their upper years of coursework.

“’Observations of a Near Distant Pulsar: Tools for Future Analysis,” Keith flips the journal open to the middle and points at the title. Ah, the 2014 piece. His baby from the data collection at the observatory site with his advisor. The one that happened right before…

“What about it?”

“Well,” Keith snaps the journal shut. Shiro wonders if he’s imagining the tinge of a blush on his face. If it’s there, is it because of embarrassment, or his heat, or both? “I read all of those books, and this, and….I still don’t understand the difference between a pulsar and a neutron star.”

“Oh,” Shiro feels relieved. He doesn’t want to answer conference difficulty level questions at 7:30 in he morning. “Okay so a neutron star is a dense entity that exisits after a massive star has collapsed. A pulsar is a neutron star that rotates so fast, that it generates additional radiation which-“ He wants to stop himself, he really does. But Keith’s opened a conversational black hole and he’s liable to get going and never stop.

* * *

Lance decides that Keith is the worst, and he wholeheartedly regrets vouching for him multiple times and having an interest in saving the poor bastard.  In addition to stinking up the place with his goddamn pheromones, he’s unwilling to open up to Lance one tiny little bit.

Lance can handle his company thanks to his secret weapon. A little of vapor rub dabbed right under his nose. It keeps some of the pheromones at bay.

“Have you ever seen a calico with part of her ear missing?”

“Wow that narrows it down to just about every calico in town,” Keith responds with annoyance dripping from his voice.

“Have you always had heats?”

“If I knew how to handle this, do you think I would’ve come here for help?” Keith sinks from the couch and sprawls onto the cold linoleum floor of the basement. He writhes around on the floor for a moment so that his shirt gets hiked up over his stomach, and most of his back can touch against the tiles.

“Why do you think you have them?”

“Why should I tell you if you’re not gonna help me through it?”

Lance scoffs. “Because, you don’t actually want that.”

Keith shrugs. “No not really. You’re not my type.”

Lance crinkles his nose. “Not possible. Handsome, funny, smart, athletic, did I say handsome? I’m everybody’s type.”

“I’m not attracted to boastful people,” Keith fires back. He flops over onto his belly to get the same cooling sensation there.

“How did you get stuck in your cat form?”

Keith doesn’t even give him a response. He just stares at him. “I don’t know why you think you’re privileged to my personal information.”

“It’s called reciprocity,” Lance all but yells at Keith. They’ve been having this one-sided mess of a conversation for almost an hour and he’s gotten nowhere. “You know I’ve been nice to you. You could be nice to me.”

“So you helped me for your own personal gain?” Keith’s brows furrow and his jaw sets into a hard line of frustration.

“Oh my god no. Not at all.”

* * *

Shiro decides that when Keith isn’t purposively antagonizing his partner, he’s really a nice person. On the third night Keith stays with them, he and Lance turn in at a reasonable hour. The only problem is that he’s up again a few hours later drenched in sweat and his heart pounding. At least he didn’t wake Lance this time.

He pushes back the covers and makes his way downstairs. His preferred activity for these kinds of sleep disruptions are to go outside and stare at the stars until he gets groggy. He arrives at the back door only to find Keith lingering in the kitchen.

It reminds him of the night last week when he thrust the house key into Keith’s hand.

“Can’t sleep?”

Keith nods his head no. “I wanted to go outside…I cracked the door and I heard something out there wailing at me…They can still smell me.”

“Do you want me to go with you? It is really nice to go outside when you can’t sleep.” In all of his grogginess and fear he hopes that adequately conveys that that was what he was about to do.

Keith shakes his head no again. “I don’t think you can handle whatever’s out there.” Keith waves his hand and it seems to imply that he’s not exactly referring to the creature that moaned at him. Instead he seems to be suggesting that he’s ill equipped to handle the shifter realm.

He’s right.

Shiro pulls out a chair at the breakfast table, sits, and then pulls one out for Keith. “Maybe not,” he decides finally. To describe the world that Keith and Lance live in as foreign is an understatement to him. Maybe it’s because he’s been put through the academic ringer and is led to only trust in the empirical tests of science. Maybe it’s because it’s all too big and too strange for him to wrap his head around.

It is safe to say that he is another human who just doesn’t _get it._

“After you had your accident, were you angry?” Keith asks the question but doesn’t make eye contact when he does it. He’s testing the water, and if it doesn’t go the right way he can break it off immediately.  

Shiro wants to go upstairs and grab his prosthetic off of the top of his dresser and show him. Make him touch the small dents in the knuckles from his first week with the device. He wants to show him how the pinky doesn’t line up with the rest of his fingers when he makes a fist. He wants to tell him about how he almost ruined a $7000 piece of equipment because he couldn’t control his emotions.  He’ll have to settle on words instead.

“In our old apartment, there was a superficial wall that divided the kitchen from the living room. I punched it so hard I dented my prosthetic.” Shiro watches Keith’s eyes widen. “Who was I mad at? No idea. Why was I mad? I lived right. Shouldn’t that be enough?” He shrugs his shoulders because two and a half years out, he still doesn’t have the answers. He’s just a little bit less upset about it.

“Hm.” Keith replies. His tone suggests that he’s disinterested, but Shiro can see the glint of processing in his eyes. He’s doing some kind of inward analysis, and whatever it is he just said…somehow it fits into the equation.

* * *

Lance decided that Keith was the worst, and he’s sticking with that decision regardless of whatever new information comes his way. Lance’s eyes drift to the LED clock on the DVD player. He’s been in the shower for at least 30 minutes.

Prissy pants needs to hurry up because he wants to take a bath before Shiro gets home. Preferably with warm water.  

Considering the stench that had permeated Keith’ skin, and fur, and clothes when they first met, He’s surprised at how much the other cat seems to legitimately love showering now.

For Lance showers remain one of the final frontiers between the animal side of his brain and the perfectly well adjusted modern shifter that he presents to the world. There’s something about the perpetual torrent of water that overwhelms his senses…If it weren’t for Shiro’s fondness of shower sex, he’d probably regulate himself only to baths from now until the end of time.

 “What’s that?” Keith flops onto Shiro’s easy chair and claws at the business card he’s got on the end table nearby. Might as be Keith’s chair considering how much time he spends in it these days. The card is pushed away from him in his pathetic attempt at grabbing the card and falls to the floor. Immediately, Keith’s crouched on the floor batting at it.

“Noneya,” Lance responds. He tries really hard to not notice how cute Keith’s ears look when they’re damp and pressed to his head. Instead, he bends at the waist to pick up the card, and then falls into the couch with one long graceful motion. He picks his phone up from the coffee table for a moment and fiddles with it. He cycles through all of the unimportant things that distract him constantly: email, Instagram, his blog, before his eyes finally settle back on the card.

He doesn’t know why he’s putting it off. The worst the PI can say is that he has nothing. Which is exactly what Lance’s got, so it’s not like it’s some big loss.

“Private Dick huh?” Keith’s got his tail in a stranglehold and he’s gnawing on the end.

It really makes Lance want to barf. There’s a time and a place, and the place is not here, and the time is not when you’re shifted into your human form.

“Must be looking for something,” Keith notes.

“Welp, that’s it buddy you’ve cracked the case. Pack it up and go home.”

“Calico with a cut up ear?”

He’s such an insufferable douche. They could’ve had this conversation the other day. Like when he’d actually wanted to talk about it.

It’s not just this afternoon. This morning the bastard had one of Shiro’s astronomy books tucked up under his arms, and was asking Shiro questions about it over breakfast while the most coherent thought he could hold in his own head was, “coffee.”

So of fucking course Shiro’s eyes got wide, and lit up like a Christmas tree in the center square. Shiro’s an insanely smart guy. He can’t even imagine being anywhere close to his level, so it always makes Shiro happy when someone is legitimately interested in his research area.

Lance has tried. Really he has, but anything above a trip to the planetarium makes his eyes gloss over.

Not to mention that Keith still isn’t over his “condition,” which means he still smells. It’s not as strong as it was a few days ago. Keith isn’t shoving his hand down his pants at any given moment, and he’s not popping a boner any time Keith’s in the same room.

But the smell is definitely, totally still there. It’s a lot less pungent and a lot more sweet. He doesn’t want to cover Keith’s mouth with his hand and fuck him senseless now. He wants to flirt with him and lay the charm on thick until he’s begging for it. Which might be worse because it requires a certain element of intellect, which means that the animal’s not driving that desire, it’s the human side.

In short, Keith is annoying and he is a disgusting degenerate.

“Bet I could help you out more than some human who likes to play cop.”

Lance rolls his eyes. That ship has sailed buddy. “Quiet,” he wave his hand at Keith. “I’m gonna make the call.”

“Yeah,” Keith says with a small snort. “You said that before I got into the shower, but okay.”

Lance holds his phone up to his ear. It rings on the other end a few times before a male voice picks up on the other end.

“Hello?”

“Hi, uh,” Lance can feel his heart beating in his ears. It’s stupid to feel nervous right now isn’t it? Shiro paid for this guy to help, and he’s following up which is totally allowed. “I’m Lance and Shiro said you’d look into my mother’s whereabouts, and said that you said to call him in a few days time.” And god he hopes that sentence had enough syllables to be discernable because wow, that was exhausting.

“Lance eh,” There’s a pause over the line. “Of the feline persuasion.”

“Um, yeah.” Lance can’t put his finger on it, but there’s something to the timber of this man’s voice that makes his skin crawl. Not really in an “icky” kind of way, but in a “stuck next to a talkative and eccentric guy on public transportation and there’s nowhere else to sit,” kind of way.

“Sorry to say I have no solid information now.”

Lance sighs into the headset.

“Don’t despair. These things take time. I’m following up on a few leads as we speak.””

“Leads? That’s something why didn’t you tell me you had something.”

“Because I’m afraid leads aren’t the same as information. If they were I’d be twice as productive.”

Lance sighs into the headset once more. The guy’s probably getting tired of his heavy breathing into the phone, but god this sucks.

“Tell ya what, I’ll call you in three days time and give you an update once I’ve chased up what I’ve got.”

“Fine.” Lance hits the end button on the call and chucks it to the end of the couch.

Keith takes the end of his tail out of his mouth. It makes Lance cringe. “I’m telling you,” Keith looks down at his tail and admires his handiwork. “When this is done and I don’t have every cat in town trying to fuck me, I’ll take you down to the fishbone. I will get you a lead.”

It’s not lost on Lance how his eyes narrow into slits and his claws dig into the armrest. He’s dead serious.

“Why?” Because he’s still not convinced that the guy who reads his boyfriends books with rapt attention, but knocks over his houseplants is going to be naturally brimming with a willingness to help.

“Are you stupid?” Keith says in a spiteful half laugh. “I’m not crazy about you, but don’t get me wrong…I know you saved my life. Probably twice now.” Keith opens his mouth like he’s going to speak again, but it doesn’t come. “Hey,” he offers a few moments later. “Do you have any heartburn medication? I’m dying.”

“You wouldn’t have that problem if you didn’t try to gnaw off all you hair. Dumbass.” Lance pinches the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. It’s a classic “Shiro grading undergrad exams,” kind of move.

* * *

 

 “Hey,” Keith pokes him in the ribs during his after class nap two days after their conversation about finding leads. “Wake up.”

Lance’s eyes flutter open Keith’s face pressed inches away from his own. He jerks away in response and nearly crawls up the back of the couch.

After his heart begins to return to a normal beat per minute rate, he realizes this is probably a good thing. Because he’s having the normal response from getting woken up from his nap.

Which means he doesn’t feel like tearing off Keith’s clothes and bending him over the nearest available surface.

Which means Keith must be out of heat.

“What the fuck though Keith?”

“Shiro’s working late tonight right? Something about a conference deadline?”

Lance’s brows knit in annoyance. It’s not cool that someone else knows all of the intimate details about Shiro’s life…Even if they’re details that are relatively easy to discern if you live with the guy. “Yeah. Why?”

“You can drive right?”

“Yeah. Why?” He reiterates and doesn’t hold back the tinge of nastiness in his voice. Keith slept all goddamn morning while he was in class, and geez a cat needs his beauty rest.

“I said I’d get you leads. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

Keith’s mouth pulls into a grin. Lance can see his sharp incisors, and he finds the whole thing unsettling. Although he’s only known the guy for a week, and sure he’s obviously gone through some shit, he’s never seen him smile. It’s beyond bizarre. “Out. Around. To all those nasty places you thought you’d never have to go to again.”

* * *

 


	7. Root

Keith is  _ wrong. _ He balls his hands into tightly packed fists and grits his teeth. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. At this point he’s trying to hold in a hiss, and obviously failing because Keith is  _ staring _ at him, which is nothing unusual because Keith is always fucking staring at something. This time it makes him want to punch Keith in the face because he’s so fucking  _ wrong. _

 

No, he hasn’t been down to the Fishbone in awhile. He’s kind of fucking busy. Sure, he knows that people like him are in a constant flux down there, and that yes, it would be in his best interest to keep tabs of the goings on down there...But with his sister in Bloomfield it reduces the urgency. 

 

With Shiro’s help it reduces the need to go down there. 

 

He had been planning on coming back, but it’s not like it used to be. Years ago, when he all but lived on the streets and worked a dead end job, it was easy to blend in down there. He couldn’t always get the information he needed, but the other shifters would at least give him the time of day. 

 

Now? 

 

The last time he’d been down there, a bartender in the dirtiest dive bar he’d ever seen said he smelled like human and cats that smelled that way had no business there. 

 

“So,” he says with his arms crossed against his chest. His stance is too wide, and his stare is not downcast enough to blend in with the other shifters that try to go to and fro their homes with little notice. “What’s your plan?” 

 

“Start asking until someone gets pissed off.” 

 

“That’s your plan?” Lance asks with a tinge of incredulousness in his voice. He’s risking his wellbeing for no plan? If he wanted to just hang out in a filthy area with cats he could’ve just hung out with the non-shifter cats in the alley for a while with minimal risk. 

 

Keith closes his eyes and breathes deeply through his nose. The tip twitches as he breathes in the musty scent of the street. Lance really doesn’t find it cute at all. Disgusting really. Quite gross.

 

His eyes snap open again, and he locks his gaze with Lances once more. “Can I trust you to not fuck something up?”

 

“Can you trust me?” Lance fights to keep his voice down. He’s not stupid, and he knows that they already stick out like sore thumbs right now. It’s not the best thing to do in one of the most crime ridden parts of town. “I helped you through your freakish inexplicable man heat, did nothing but help you when you couldn’t tell up from down, but you know what no? Absolutely not.” He has to say it through clenched teeth to keep his voice down. 

  
“Fine,” Keith takes him by the elbow and drags him northbound down Pearl street. 

* * *

“So like, this is weird.” 

“Little bit,” Hunk says as he scoots over toward the middle of the sofa and makes room for Keith. Lance opts to sit on the armrest. 

“I figured something was up but I didn’t quite know what,” Hunk rubs his nose with his index finger. Lance hasn’t known him long, but it’s one of the larger man’s many nervous tics. 

“If you don’t mind me asking dude.” Now it’s time for Lance to show one of his nervous tics. He rubs at the base of his neck where hairline meets skin. It’s one of those annoying, “never did this before I saw Shiro doing it” traits that he’s picked up over the years. “What are you exactly?”

Hunk doesn’t smell like a particular animal: cat, dog, bird, reptile. Hunk smells like Hunk, a mixture of earthiness and turmeric and sesame oil. It’s how the apartment smells too. 

He undoes the headband he keeps tied over his bangs. Slowly, two jetblack ears rise up from his hairline. “Same as you my dude.”

“No,” Lance disagrees. “Not the same.” The smell is not the same at all. 

“I mean, I turn into a slightly bigger cat, but”

“Panther,” Keith says flatly as if he knows that’s the kind of straightforward response that Lance is looking for. 

“Wow!” Lance can feel his jaw go slack, and part of him cannot believe that he’s fanning over his friend from math class, but really. Wow. With increased urbanization and deforestation, exotic shifters were rapidly becoming the thing of legend. 

“I believe that you,” Lance points to Hunk. “Were a super cool badass justice freedom fighter in a not so distant past life.” He points over to Keith in turn. “Him on the other hand.” It’s hard to imagine the guy who came in his pants when Lance brushed up against his arm...The same guy that he met naked, writhing, and clawing up his carpet, could go around busting heads. 

Then again, he isn’t blind and he has noticed the large knife Keith’s been rocking since he came back. 

“It’s mostly in the past for me now,” Hunk says quietly. “Can’t risk it, and it was getting very, very risky. Looks like you’re still in the game,” Hunk shoots him a look that screams “Don’t fucking do it.”  

“I have to repay a debt.” Keith shoots him a glare that’s as sharp as his knife. “So, you got anything for me?” His gaze softens as he turns back to Hunk. 

Hunk opens his mouth but he’s interrupted.

“Does this one have anything for you?” A woman with skin that is a leathery gray color enters from the bedroom. It looks flaky and peeling in places like some kind of sunburn. Her eyes are all wide green iris, and no discernable human like pupil.  It makes him really really want to ask  _ what  _ she is because he’s never seen anything like her before. She’s breathtaking, in a confusing kind of way. 

She has a closed book in her hand and waves it about as she speaks “After you show up from one year gone? After he has assumed you dead and mourned accordingly?” 

“Shay,” Hunk all but whimpers. He wrings his hands together in anxiousness. 

And wait, dead? People thought Keith was dead? That probably wasn’t good right? 

“He deserves to know whatever info we can give Shay,” Hunk speaks this time with confidence. It’s not that much anyway.” 

Shay sucks in a sharp breath of air and holds her tongue. It’s the kind of pause that takes a moment to learn and a lifetime to master. There’s a lot of frustration, and worry built into that pause, but she holds it. 

“I think you’re looking for bats Keith.” 

Keith’s expression contorts into a pinched grimace. “Gross.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Hunk agrees. “It’s just a hunch though. Those guys that grabbed you, didn’t look like any other bat I’ve ever seen. They were huge.” He gesticulates wildly with his hands. “And every other bat I’ve seen is so small when they’re in shifted form. Like, smaller than bird shifters.”

There’s something going on there, between Keith and Hunk. Something that happened before, that they’ve decided is okay to discuss in front of him, but it’s not okay to explain the whole story. It’s irksome, so he interjects, “Grabbed? Dead? What the hell?” 

Keith shoots him a sidelong glance like he’s said something stupid, or insulted him or both. Except that he really didn’t, so Keith should just get over it. 

  
But then Keith does that thing that he tends to do so very well, surprise him. Take all those stupid glares and under the breath mumbling, smush them into a tiny insignificant ball and toss it out the window because he’s managed to do something nice. “We have another issue as well,” Keith gestures to him. “We’re looking for someone else.” 

* * *

Despite Hunk’s insistence that he wanted to stay out of it, he ended up giving them something like a lead. Keith said he’d get one, he just had no idea that it might involve chatting up his friend from class. 

There’s a new cashier at the Starr Market, that is very open and very vocal about his affinity for calicos. To the point that he’s made several neighborhood girls uncomfortable with his come ons. Hunk thinks that he could be human, but doesn’t quite buy it because of how few humans live in this part of town. 

And, despite Hunk saying that he wanted to stay out of it, he told them to keep him. Of course, that was after he’d walked them out and he was out of earshot from the strange looking woman. 

Just because they had a lead didn’t mean Keith was going to make this easy. 

“Starr Market’s on the south end,” he says without even trying to hold the disdain in his voice. “We’re going north.” 

“Right,” Keith rolls his eyes as they move through the ebb and flow of the crowd. It’s strange how people organize themselves here. Half are in shifted form, and he has to look downward to make sure he doesn’t step on anyone’s paws. Half are in human form, and he also has to negotiate not bumping into anyone. As a tall man with large feet, this task is nigh on impossible. 

It only adds to the fact that he and Keith stand out. 

Their clothes look like kings robes in comparison to the garments those on the street wore which consisted of simple hand made dresses or faded donation shirts. 

“Like we’re just gonna walk in there and ask him if he’s seen your mom.” 

“Well,” When he puts it like that, he realizes that just showing up there doesn’t sound great. “What’s your plan.” 

Keith lets out a long, drawn out sigh. “A big part of the plan is making sure you keep your cool.” He shoves his hands into the too-large pair of jeans that look like they may have been Shiro’s once upon a time. The action pulls them down dangerously low, and he has to scramble to pull them back up. “Never thought I’d be the one doing that on a job,” he says it low and under his breath, like he doesn’t want Lance to hear.  

And…

Is that the hint of a smile pulling up at the corners of his mouth? No fucking way. A shrill meowing sound fills his ears and the smile drains away from Keith’s face. “Sorry!” His face goes red, he’s stepped on a shifted cat’s paw, and she’s none too happy about it. “Really, I’m so sorry,” Keith notices the gray hairs that are sprinkled in with her bright orange ones. “Ma’am,” he adds as an afterthought. 

“At any rate,” Keith says sternly as if he’s trying to rapidly regain his cool. “We’re gonna get more info before we case the joint.” 

* * *

The bar smells like piss, and not like one of the college bars near campus that serves dollar shots from 4-6 and long islands that look like 2 liters. It smells like the spray of a male cat, sharp and acidic. It makes his stomach churn and he can’t deny the watery feeling that wells in his mouth that comes with the nausea. 

It takes all of three seconds for him to decide that the place makes his skin crawl, and it’s not just the smell. It’s the implication that there are so many that are alike him, and yet so different. The scent is a threat, and cats like him are the target. 

He feels a hand on his wrist. The touch is soft, but before he can jerk away the hand around him tenses. “I’m not going to tell you to relax,” Keith says low into his ear. “You shouldn’t not for a second. But,” The grip loosens and...Is Keith rubbing a slow circle where his claws dug in moments before. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

Lance lets out a breath that he’s been holding since they crossed the threshold into the unmarked door that served as the dive’s entrance. “Happen to me?” It comes out in an exaggerated loud whisper. “Happen to me? I’m going to get stabbed or something and it’s going to be your fault. I’m going to die here Keith. I’m going to get stabbed, and then bleed out. Then who will iron Shiro’s shirt? The man can’t iron to save his life.” 

“Sorry,” Keith spits back. “For trying to make you feel better.” 

Inside there are no neon lights advertising cheap domestic brands. No specials written sloppily on a blackboard. No pool tables that tilt to the side or dart boards that have the noses of old darts stuck in. 

There’s nothing, save for a few low hanging lights over crackled plastic covered booths. His feet hit the uneven and peeling places in the flooring. Keith leads them straight to the bar. It’s made of a thick well worn wood that splinters easily beneath his touch. 

He stands there blankly, until Keith pulls out a stool for him. 

The gesture pulls him back to reality. As he moves to sit he mouths, “sorry,” because as much as Keith can and does get under his skin the gesture isn’t lost on him. He could easily be like hunk and prefer to stay out of it. 

The bartender turns around from her spot at the till. She slams the register closed with a sharp bang, and immediately moves to grab a pair of tumblers from the back bar. “What am I getting,” she turns to face them fully, “you fell-”. She stumbles over the last syllable and her jaw goes slack. She drops the tumbler and it shatters to the floor. “Oh, my god.” 

Even in the dimmest of light he can see the color drain from her face. He can see her human like eyes narrow into startled animal slits. 

Then he remembers what the woman in Hunk’s apartment said earlier. 

* * *

“You too huh, Max?” Guess it’s true. Hunk had no reason to lie, but he really didn’t think there were enough people in town to care or remember if he were alive or dead one way or the other. 

Still, she didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve to see a ghost before the sun even went down. He knew she had to keep her wits because there was going to be more trouble walking through that door before the night was done. 

“Look,” her breathing returns to normal. The white hairs of her partially shifted form stay on her forearms and in a patch on her chest where her shirt cuts down low. “I’m glad you’re not dead, but you can’t stay here.” 

Oh. This was new. He feels the hair stand up on his arms. Interesting too. His hand returns to Lance’s wrist to hold him still because he knows that he’s seconds away from bolting. 

With those lanky fucking legs he’d never catch up. 

“One drink?” He’d settle for a half a drink’s worth of Maxine’s time right now. He was desperate, and Hunk’s intel only went so far. Especially if he was spending more time on the human side of town these days. 

She wrinkles her nose. “Yeah,” she begins, and then slams her open palms against the bar. “But it’s gotta be fast.” 

She pours them a generous serving of well rum before topping it off with a splash of Coke. She pushes the drinks at them. “Well?” 

“Lance,” he jabs the man next to him with his elbow just to make sure he’s still cognizant. He nearly jumps up into the ceiling rafters. “You first.” 

“Well you see, I-um am um-looking for my mom, and she uh- is a cat shifter and.” 

Oh god, he’s worse than he imagined. He let’s Lance get it out of his system because despite the other man’s nerves, the stakes are still low here. Nothing to go off of. Nothing to lose. 

“I guess she’d be about forty now-” 

“Haven’t seen her,” Max fires back while shooting him a disinterested look. 

“Unrelated note,” Keith interrupts. “Sounds like the guy at Starr Market’s got a bit of a reputation.” He keeps it vague. 

Her expression says it all. If she’d had another glass she would’ve dropped it too. 

“Fuckin creep,” she spits back and busies herself with adding new nozzles to the bottles of alcohol and stocks the back bar. “Nothin you need to worry about. Male calicos are one in a million. And neither of yous is one.” 

Keith can’t tell if he’s getting anywhere or if she’s just repeating rumors. “You have a bad run in with him?” 

She rolls her eyes and lets out an exasperated huff of air. “Yeah. He bought me a tonic after his shift and drugged it. Some regulars chased him off. It’s amazing who you find out isn’t really scum when the chips are down. And so you don’t have to keep asking he works night shift.” To punctuate her sentence, she all but yells at them. “Now get out of my bar before something bad happens to me too.” 

He can hear the scraping of Lance’s barstool next to him. “Thanks for the drink then. Here,” he throws some money on the table. “C’mon Keith let’s go, I don’t want to get stuck in traffic and-” 

“Lance, we haven’t finished our drinks yet.” 

For a moment there’s nothing but raw tension between the three of them. It’s so silent in the late afternoon bar you could hear a pin drop. But he’s waited out her and her type before. She will start talking again just to make the discomfort, and them go away. 

“What the fuck else do you want?” 

“What do you know,” he pauses for a moment before he forces himself to choke the words out. “About my death?” 

“Buncha fuckin’ musclehead tomcats. They call themselves Galra which is old timer talk for trouble. I think they’re looking for you Keith. Specially since you’re you know. Not dead and all.” 

It’s not. It means conqueror in old-speak, but he doesn’t fault Max for not knowing. No one knows the old ways anymore. 

“There’s a lot of ‘em. But this one Sendak. He’s around the most. Scary guy.” Her whole body shudders again. “That’s all I know.” 

  
Keith stares at her for a few agonizing seconds. Her tells are easy for those that knew how to look. She rubbed her nose a lot when she was lying. Or scratched her own ears. Right now her hands were stock still. “Lance,” he clears his throat and gets up from the table. Lance immediately copies him. “I’m done with my drink.” 

* * *

“Well that doesn’t make any sense.” Maybe they needed to duck into another dive so he could get Lance to shut up again. “Hunk said bats. She said cats.” Keith guessed he had nothing to complain about since they were headed back north towards the market to see if they could catch this guy in his element. “Are you going to tell me why everyone who sees you thinks you were dead?” 

“I think I have the right to know.” 

“Did you ever consider that I have the right to know?” he says through gritted teeth. “Because I fucking don’t.” 

That shuts him up. 

It’s sundown now, which means that the streets of the Fishbone are jam packed. Cats are crepuscular which means they work best in the twilight hours. Shifted cats are out trying to catch rats. Human ones are out trying to sell food, or sex, or cheap knick knacks. 

Either Lance’s discomfort is contagious or they’re getting tailed. 

“Sorry dude.” Lance says under his breath. 

It’s not just the feeling of eyes on them. They’ve had eyes on them since they set foot in the borough. It’s the occasional flash of red in his peripheral vision. It makes the hair on the back of his neck rise, and stay risen. Makes his ears twitch with an uncontrollable urgency. 

He’d never thought he’d live to see the day he longed for nothing more than to be back at Lance and Shiro’s home...but he knows that he can’t stand whatever situation he’s gotten them in now. 

It’s no longer a matter of how to best case this alleged calico creep, and how to best get the fuck out of there. Telling Lance isn’t an option. 

He can feel his heartbeat accelerate harder than Lance trying to make the last few seconds of a yellow light. His palms are covered in slick sweat, but his mouth is dry. He fucking knows better than to bring an inexperienced person along. 

It’s mistakes like that that will kill him for real this time. 

So he picks up the pace. Lance matches it without skipping a beat. He makes a sharp turn right, then doubles back through another ally. 

“Dude, where are we going?” 

“If you take me to another dive I swear,” 

“Lance,” he says through clenched teeth. “Fucking trust me.”

“Only because someone’s following us,” he fires back. 

At that something deep inside of him shifts into overdrive. He grabs Lance’s wrist for what must be the thousandth time that day and breaks into a dead run. He doesn’t have to drag him forward. Lance is fast, maybe faster than him and definitely has a long stride. 

“Keith.” As suddenly as they started running they’ve stopped. Lance is tugging on his shirt, and talking in high pitched needy tone that barely sounds like him “Keith, we have a problem.” 

That’s one way to define it. 

They’ve ran into a dead end, and what separates them from the end of the alley is a gigantic creature that can hardly be called a man. 

Suddenly the conflicting stories make sense. 

It’s dark like a bat, but bigger. Ears kind of like a cat’s but not quite. He notices that his metal arm puts Shiro’s to shame in bulk, and by the way he swings it, dexterity. 

He’s acutely aware that the gears in his head are turning and turning, and misfiring due to fear. This thing is shockingly familiar, and he can’t remember why. 

“You’re a hard kitty to find,” he says with a dark chuckle. “Your mistress will be glad to have you back.

“What the fuck did you freaks do to me?” 

“Do you like your augmentations?” 

Keith unsheathes his knife in response. Even if he can get close enough to stab the guy, with nowhere to go his speed and his size are useless at this close of a range. He can maybe use it to buy Lance a few seconds. 

But he’s tempted to keep him talking. 

“Keith! Get to it. Stab him.” 

“They’re real interesting. What all are they?” He tries to ignore the painful fact that his vision is getting tunneled and his stomach is sick. This is no time to freak out about whatever the hell happened to him. If he can keep him talking for a bit longer, and actually find something out then great. 

“If you think writhing around like a bitch in heat is interesting. Sure.” The larger shifter lunges at them. Specifically him. In one second he can see that big ominous metal hand coming at him and the next thing he knows it’s gone. “You don’t have much else.” 

And Lance is in front of him. He’s not really fighting, he can’t compared to the other creature’s might. 

Seeing that huge metal hand sinking its claws into Lance’s chest forces him to shake the sick feeling from his body and spring into action. He’s sinking the knife deep past dark purple black fur and into skin. 

There’s blood everywhere, and then the claw is sinking into him. 

The only coherent thoughts he can keep in his head is that he hopes the stupid housecat can get away. He doesn’t deserve any of this. He also had hoped for more time before something like this happened again. 

There’s pressure on his chest as he feels himself lose consciousness. Then, a flash of yellow before his eyes, and a deep feline roar. It’s a sound that puts house cats and alley cats alike to shame. 

He can’t keep himself from losing consciousness, but he’s pretty sure he passes out with a big stupid grin on his face. 

That bastard Hunk can’t stay out of trouble, even when he wants to. 


	8. Wedge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick interlude chapter

Their escape came back to him in hazy bits once they reached the house. Hunk intervened, and then there was the sound of flesh slamming against wall. Then, there was running. Lots of running until his lungs burned alongside every muscle in his body. He wished he could recall more, but it happened so fast that the only proof he has that any of it was real was the wound on his chest and the fact that they’d gotten away. 

 

The escape itself led to it’s own issues. 

 

Lance didn’t tell lies. Period. He grew up with four older siblings who’d rat him out in a heartbeat. He had a mother that encouraged honesty to the point of self-detriment. He too had grown to possess the same quality. Even when he’d try to do it for something harmless, he’d end up telling on himself in a matter of moments. 

 

He forgot to lock the door.

 

He ate the cookies that were for the astronomy department’s potluck. 

 

He never lied to Shiro, because he had no reason to do so. Shiro was honest with him, even if he had to pry it out of him sometimes. There was no reason to not do the same. 

 

But he could feel the lies growing, and growing, and growing in his mind. Shiro wasn’t even home yet, and he knew that’s what he was going to do. 

 

Lie one: lie by omission. He and Keith definitely weren’t down in one of the most dangerous parts of town nosing around. It’s nothing in and of itself Shiro would care about. He used to go down there all the time. However, admitting that little detail quickly led to other things being disclosed. 

 

Things better left unsaid. 

 

Lie two: was this one a lie or a betrayal of judgement? The PI wasn’t good enough. Invigorated by a newfound desire to find his family, he plucked something of utmost importance to himself from Shiro’s capable assistance and flung it into the clutches of a stranger. 

 

Lie three: undeniably the biggest problem. Like, monumentally big, and only getting bigger (the lie, not the wound). The big claw wound on his chest. He hadn’t even attempted to clean or dress it yet. He didn’t even know where to start, as if doing something about it meant admitting that the events of the past few hours were real. 

 

Keith on the other hand, had gotten busy right away. He’d shucked his (formerly Lance’s) badly torn shirt and took care to shove it into the very bottom of the trash can. Then, immediately set out to licking his wounds. 

 

He made wet slurping sounds while he worked that made Lance want to wretch. 

“We have like, you know antiseptic so you can clean that out,” he says as he shoots Keith a sharp glare. 

 

Keith stops what he’s doing and doesn’t even bother to wipe his own blood away from his chin. “Look,” Keith said with a voice barely above a whisper that did not sound a. Husky or b. Needy. It was just Keith being socially inept. Like he seems to be prone to be. 

 

Keith raised his arm to his mouth and lapped at the wound there. One lick, the wound went from bleeding to cauterized. Two, and the open gash was a pink scar. The third lick, and the wound was all but gone. The skin was still tinged pink, but in the same way that pale skin goes pink when it’s exposed to the cold, or strong hands grip it too tight. 

 

He’s not stupid. He knows that saliva from one’s own kind can be used to hasten the healing process. He’s just not used to it being  _ that _ effective that fast. 

 

“Take your shirt off,” Keith cocks his head and looks at his torso. “What’s left of it.” 

 

“What? No way.” Lance does his best to shrink into the armchair he’s flung himself on. But here’s the thing about being a 6 foot tall dude. It’s hard to disappear. 

“What,” Keith snorts. “Does basic intra shifter grooming violate the conditions of your humanized relationship?” His voice is thick with venom. 

 

That’s stupid, because such an offer was scandalous even by shifter standards. Licking the wounds of others was reserved for families and mates. The only time it’s ever okay to throw etiquette out the window is during an emergency. 

 

Lance assesses the deep string that starts on his skin and ebbs into the muscle as an unignorable throb. Did this count as an emergency? 

 

“Or do you want Shiro to see that?” Keith gestures to the wound, and he takes a moment to look at it. 

 

Three large claw marks run from his pectoral to midway through his ribs. If Shiro saw it, he’d freak out and insist he went to the hospital. And all things considered, it’ would maybe be 24 hours until Shiro noticed something was wrong. Tops. That’s assuming that he pulled an all nighter for the conference deadline, didn’t come home until after the faculty meeting at 10, and promptly passed out. 

 

“Fine,” he says as he shucks what’s left of his shirt. “But no funny business.” 

 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Keith says in a tone that, let him reiterate is not husky, or sexy, or deeply appealing to the creature part of his brain. 

 

Keith stoops to his knees and with shaky hands puts one on either armrest of the chair. He lets his claws sink into the deep red brown upholstery. 

 

“Like this?” Lance can’t fight the red hot blush that creeps onto his face. He can feel the pulse of his heart in his ears. At the end of the day, no matter how many mental gymnastics he did to try to justify it, it really did just boil down to another man licking his chest all over. Which was totally all kinds of wrong. 

 

“Would you rather stand?” 

 

“No!” As a matter of fact he would not. Standing would make the situation even more awkward with Keith having to be near his…

 

“Just get on with it.”    
  


For a minute he didn’t know exactly what he’d been so worked up about. It can’t be cheating if it feels awful in every conceivable way. Right? 

 

Keith hovers over him with his hands firmly planted on the armrests as he begins to tongue at the wounds on Lance’s chest. Each moment that Keith connects to Lance feels like someone raking coals across his skin. 

 

A pained moan rolls off his tongue and out of his mouth before he can stop himself. It’s far more agonizing than the initial drag of the claws across his skin. 

 

Keith let’s go of the armrest with one hand and takes his hand into his own. “You can squeeze my hand if it hurts to much.” Keith explains. “No funny business,” he repeats into Lance’s skin. 

 

Hand holding? Funny business? This guy. It’s the last thought he holds in his head before Keith licks a very long stripe from the base of his left nipple, across the expanse of his chest, and downward towards the smallest part of his waist. 

 

As he heals the largest of the cuts, Keith leaves acidic burning in his wake. 

 

Alongside irritated, yet closed skin. 

 

It’s a miracle. It has to be. Shelve the potential issues with hiding all of this from Shiro for another day. It’s future Lance’s problem, and boy does he feel bad for that sucker. 

 

Once Keith has the wounds closed, he traces them again with his tongue to heal the . On the second and third passes, it doesn’t hurt nearly as much. It doesn’t have the same slow drag as the usual kind of lick across his chest, but for that he’s glad. When he’s done, there’s nothing left in his wake but smooth tanned skin. 

 

The whole process melts from agony to something mesmerising. He’s sure of it now. He’s never seen wounds heal this fast from shifter saliva alone. It is as frightening as it is powerful. What else can Keith do?

 

He focuses solely on the closing wounds and regenerating skin. He doesn’t notice at all the way Keith’s brows knit in concentration, nor does he acknowledge the way he looks with his tongue roaming all over his muscle. He doesn’t even begin to think about how relaxed Keith looks while he’s lapping at his skin. 

 

He absolutely  _ does not _ think about it. Because that really would push the act from questionable into immoral, wouldn’t it? 

 

Keith pulls up from his chest and taps on his lower jaw once, twice, three times in rapid succession before he finally closes his mouth. “You look gross with your mouth is open like that.” 

 

“I’m not used to being healed with freak saliva.” 

 

“You’re not used to being healed,” Keith corrects as he raises to his feet. 

 

There’s a long pregnant silent between them where Keith’s stare bored into him like an awl, and he refuses to look away for the sake of pride. “Do you w-want me,” he stammers. “To do it to you?” 

 

He can’t heal like that, but he can make it so that Keith doesn’t have to worry about changing bandages once every few hours. 

 

“Shiro’s not gonna see me shirtless...Again” He adds as if suddenly remembering how they met and that Shiro has seen him naked. Several times at this point.  

 

“You’re damn right he’s not,” Lance grumbles under his breath. 

 

“I guess so,” Keith says in response to the initial question as he peels his shirt up and flops down into the sofa. “There are some places I can’t reach.” 

 

Neither of them have showered yet, too tired and confused to pull their bodies toward the bathroom. Keith’s skin tastes like sweat, the stink of the street, of course blood, and without a doubt the unmistakable pheromones of adrenaline. 

 

It’s the latter item that makes his pulse continue to pound in his ears. Even though they’re faded indicating a cat no longer in danger, the taste of them on Keith’s skin gets his heart racing and his tail twitching. The chemicals tell him to protect, to fight, to claim. 

 

Lance does his best to shake the thought from his head and stay on task. If he can survive Keith in heat, he can survive this.

 

The wounds don’t heal up as well as his did. They close, but the trail of saliva leaves thick ugly fresh scabs in its wake. He’s going to scar, especially in the spot right above his navel. He focuses on that. How awful it’s going to be for Keith to have a scar there when despite all he’s been through, his body (what he’s seen) is relatively free from scars. 

 

Maybe it’s because of whatever healing properties his body has. 

 

He’s going to have a scar there on soft skin stretched over taut muscle. 

 

It’s not fair. Keith probably would’ve been fine if he didn’t have to worry about him too, and he wouldn’t say it to his face, but he was a liability today. 

 

It’s also not fair the way Keith buries his short bony fingers into his hair. Maybe it was Keith’s wordless way of chiding him for not offering him his hand. 

 

This is somehow worse. 

 

Lance goes over each wound one more time for good measure before he decides that his saliva healing properties have reached their limit. 

 

He moves back on the balls of his heels so that he can stand, but now it’s Keith’s turn to stare at him slack jawed. His hands are still buried in his hair, and it makes the whole situation more obscene than it needs to be. 

 

Lance bats the other shifter’s hand out of his hair before he rights himself. 

 

“You look gross with your mouth open like that.” Lance repeats what Keith told him earlier. Not a word of it from Shiro,” he says finally. “At least not from you. I explain it. All of it.” 

  
“You’ve already decided,” Keith replies. “You’re not going to.” 


End file.
